ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 708 / Cò-RL News In the News I spent several weeks in October feeling that I had arrived. No longer would I be a have-not, the only person at a committee meeting without one. N o longer would I be relegated to endless rounds of telephone tag without an alternative. What is this alternative? What gave me this feeling o f satisfac­ tion? I received my very own Bitnet number! At last I could get e-maiÌ messages, too. I could read the bulletin boards and the newsletters and have a much better idea about what the conversations at Midwinter and Annual were all about. I would like to thank Nancy John and the Univer­ sity of Illinois at Chicago for my new e-mail status. UIC is generously adding a number of ALA staff members to its e-mail account; Nancy was a very patient teacher, conducting two half-day work­ shops for ALA staff to learn about the UIC Bitnet system and responding to my questions about up­ loading and downloading flies. I have had great pleasure since then sending quick messages when there isn’t time to get a perfect letter in the mail and downloading files close to the deadline. For those of you who have been bitnetting (if impacting can be used as a verb, why not bitnetting?) for years I may sound naive. I know there is a downside. A member, belatedly responding to my e-mail test drive, explained that he had been out sick for two weeks and had 435 e-mail messages to reply to. I ’ve read about the need for standardization and the complaints about the quality of the comments/ information on the Bitnet and Internet. But, despite these possible drawbacks, I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in it myself. And despite the daunting fact that I, too, may end up with hundreds of messages, I encourage each of you to use my new e-mail address to communicate with me. Send your news items, comments, ideas, and even your classified ads to me as an e-mail message. I have already received several announce­ ments about appointments, acquisitions, and grants this way and I would love to hear from you, too. My Bitnet number is: U38398@UICVM.bitnet. This issue includes the results o f a food and drink policy survey and introduces a new feature— an About the cover This Arthur Rackham illustration from Wash­ ington Irving’s the L egen d o f Sleepy Hollow is part of the Betsy Beinecke Shirley collection featured in the “Read me a Story: Show me a Book” exhibit at the Beinecke Library, Yale University, Octo- ber-D ecem ber 1991. opinion column entitled “The Way I See It.” Helen Gater offers her opinion on food and drink bans in libraries for the debut column. Essays of 500-750 words offering a reasoned commentary on issues relevant to academic and research librarianship are sought. This issue also includes requests from ACRL members for your comments on several items: 1) the new draft “Standards for ethical conduct for rare book, manuscript and special collections li­ braries and librarians” (page 721); 2) whether or not ACRL should take a position on social issues (page 732); and 3) faculty status (page 733). I encourage you to take the time to think about these issues and share your comments with your colleagues. Thanks to Bill Hubbard, Diane Geraci, and Pat Sabosik for reporting (respectively) on recent meet­ ings o f EDUCOM , IASSIST, and the Society for Scholarly Publishing for this issue and to Carol Henderson for her timely piece on the Americans with Disabilities Act. I also hope you will enjoy reading Je ff Selth’s narrative about a convicted rare book thief. I look forward to hearing from you. — Mary Ellen K. Davis E d ito r & Publisher U38398@UICVM.bitnet A lithograph b y A. H all f r o m The Child’s Pictorial Geometry (1841) f r o m the collection o f B etsy B ein ecke Shirley exhibited this fa l l at th e B einecke L ibrary, Yale University.