Judging by the responses on the list and off it, it appears that a number of people believe that those who have protested Mr. Bridge's directory compilation methods are objecting to the idea of the directory itself. Nothing could be further from the case -- the directory, if properly compiled, will be an excellent resource to the museum community. One can approve of ends without endorsing all means proposed to reach them. Perhaps a "real-world" analogy will make the issues clearer: You have subcribed to "The Washington Post". You notice a public notice in one issue, announcing that someone is compiling a directory of the residents of Washington, DC, as a public service. You are invited to submit your name and address for inclusion in the directory. For whatever reason, you don't respond -- perhaps you are not a resident of Washington, but subscribe to the paper because you enjoy it. Perhaps you do live in Washington, but don't feel like being in a city directory, because you know you are already in the telephone book. In any case, several weeks later you see a notice in the "Post" stating that the directory compiler does not feel that he has received an adequate response to his initial query, so he has received permission from the "Post" management to include the entire subscriber list in his directory. Since the directory compiler realizes that this may not please everyone, he suggests that any "Post" subscriber who does not wish to be included in his city directory send a note to the "Post" stating the fact. I believe that this is a reasonable analogy to what has been proposed for the use of the membership list of MUSEUM-L. Would those who cannot understand our objections to this use, also feel perfectly comfortable with the compilation of the "Washington City Directory" described above, either from the viewpoint of privacy, or the accuracy of the resulting data? +------------------------------+------------------------+ | Barbara Weitbrecht | (202) 357-4162 | | Smithsonian Institution | [log in to unmask] | | National Air & Space Museum | [log in to unmask] | +------------------------------+------------------------+