This welcome message is designed to provide you with basic information about this list. It contains information on managing your subscription; tips on contacting and communicat- ing via the list; mailing addresses of the list moderators; a list of the current editorial board; and a directory of basic services provided by H-POL and its parent, H-Net.

I. The H-POL List: Scope, Content, Purpose.

H-POL is dedicated to enhancing scholarly communication on the history of politics, with a special interest in the history of politics in the United States. H-POL fosters produc- tive exchange of ideas and materials among historically-oriented scholars of a social scientific or humanistic perspective -the list is not limited to professional, academic historians. Archivists, librarians, public historians, and students at any level with a mature interest in the craft of political history are also welcome. Through this list, subscribers and moderators will communicate current research and research interests; discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; test new ideas and share comments and tips on teaching.

H-POL invites subscribers to submit syllabi, outlines, hand- outs, bibliographies, guides to term papers, listings of new sources and archives, and reports on new software, datasets and cd-roms. As a member of H-Net, H-POL will post announcements about conferences, fellowships and grants, research and publica- tion opportunities, and jobs. We are especially interested in reaching college faculty who already have, or plan to teach courses on political history. H-POL will therefore actively solicit syllabi, reading lists, term paper guides, ideas on films and slides, and tips and comments that will be of use to the teacher who wants to add a single lecture, or an entire course.

II. Our Parent Organization: H-Net

H-POL is one of several dozen scholarly discussion groups ("lists") published by H-Net. H-Net is an international scholarly organization dedicated to promoting the scholarly use of the Internet and electronic resources. H-Net is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is hosted by the University of Illinois-Chicago, Michigan State University, and several other institutions. Subscription is free, and subscribers will automatically receive messages in their computer mailboxes. Messages can be saved, discarded, copied, printed out, or relayed to someone else. It is like a newsletter that is free and published daily. H-Net is governed through a Charter that establishes a decision-making authority for all of its lists. An Executive Director and Associate Director manage daily affairs and advise on strategic planning. An Executive Committee of seven members develops policy and serves as the basic decision-making authority. A voting staff of moderators, editors, computer staff,

and editorial board representatives elects H-Net officers and retains the power to review Executive decisions. A copy of the H-Net Charter can be obtained by sending the command GET H-NET CHARTER to LISTSERV@UICVM.UIC.EDU; or by downloading from the H-Net gopher at UICVM. For information on H-Net's plans, send the messsage GET H-NET PLAN to LISTSERV@UICVM.UIC.EDU.

H-Net sponsors over 50 public lists, has many new ones in the planning stage, and runs a slew of private lists. We have over 20,000 subscribers in 50 countries, with new people signing up every day. The current status report and list of lists can be obtained by gophering to GOPHER.UIC.EDU and menuing to the H-Net gopher menu.

III. Editors.

H-POL will be moderated to filter out extraneous messages (like requests for subscription) and items that do not belong on H-POL. They may belong somewhere else, or in the judgment of the moderators they do not aid the scholarly dialogue. The moderators will not alter the meaning of messages without the author's permission.

Editorial correspondence should be sent to:

Peter Knupfer
Associate Professor
History Department
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-1002
Internet: HPOL1@KSU.KSU.EDU
Phone/Voice mail: 913 532 5824
FAX: 913 532 7004

IV. Communicating Through the List.

A. Copyright notice. All contributions to H-POL fall under the H-Net Charter's sections covering copyright: "[Art. VI, Secs. G and H]: "H-Net respects the copyrights of authors whose material is posted on its lists and/or stored in its logs, fileservers, and gopher. Authors who post items to H-Net lists convey to HNet only the right to electronically reproduce their work on HNet lists and in H-Net files. H-Net owns the name of each subjectarea list, its roster of subscribers, its on-line files, and its gopher and related files. All funds raised by advertisements and fees charged by the subject-area lists belong to H-Net and are under the control of the treasurer. H-Net's assertion of ownership is meant only to protect the rights of H-Net and shall not infringe on the copyrights of authors regarding any files or documents they may have made available to H-Net."

In general, the author retains copyright rights to publication of any submission to the list, and H-POL and H-Net retain the right to store, disseminate with full attribution, and make available to subscribers such submissions.

B. Technical Information. When you subscribe, LISTSERV will send you a confirmation message containing important information about managing your subscription. You are encouraged to save this message as a text file for future reference.

ALL changes to your subscription must be addressed to LISTSERV@KSUVM.KSU.EDU, the software that manages the distribu- tion and archiving of list electronic mail.

To subscribe: send this email message via BITNET to LISTSERV@KSUVM:

sub H-POL firstname surname, school Example: sub H-POL Leslie Jones, Southern Jersey U. If you use Internet instead of Bitnet, the same message goes to LISTSERV@KSUVM.KSU.EDU [capital or lower case does not matter, but spelling does. Note "LISTSERV"]. There are no dues or fees of any kind. Subscribers only need an address on Bitnet or Internet, which is provided to faculty and students by campus computer cen- ters. The consultants there, or your departmental guru, can explain how to send an email message via Bitnet or Internet.

a.) To unsubscribe, logon to the computer account from which you subscribed to the list, and send this message to LISTSERV@KSUVM UNSUB H-POL

Please unsubscribe from H-POL and all other mailing lists if you are terminating a particular computer account. You can then resubscribe from the new account.

b.) To send your own message to all subscribers, send an email note directly to H-POL@KSUVM.KSU.EDU. Longer messages will also be accepted, but may be stored on a fileserver for interested subscribers to access if they choose, rather than having them sent to everyone.

c.) To REPLY to a message so that all subscribers can read it, be sure that the outgoing reply is directed to H-POL@KSUVM.KSU.EDU, and not to the original author or to the moderator. Replies intended only for individual authors should be sent directly to the author.

d). If you are away for an extended period, suspend H-POL email by sending this to LISTSERV@KSUVM

SET H-POL NOMAIL e.) After vacation, you can resume by sending to LISTSERV@KSUVM SET H-POL MAIL f.) If you prefer to receive one daily digest of all posts to HCivWar instead of various individual posts, you can do so by sending this to LISTSERV@KSUVM: SET H-POL DIGEST To return to individual messages, send LISTSERV@KSUVM the follow- ing message: SET H-POL NODIGEST

C. Contributions: "Netiquette." The tone and content of H-POL depend directly on subscribers. The moderators want to encourage lively, informal, productive discussion and exchange of informa- tion. To that end, we ask that contributions be composed with some consideration for the needs of a busy audience of scholars; some subscribers' e-mail access is billed to them by the amount of incoming mail, so that long postings can become expensive at times. Please sign all mail to the list -- the moderators will delay posting until authorship is confirmed. The internet is developing its own set of special symbols designed to convey the spirit behind the letter of one's messages. The term <g>, denot- ing "grin," or emoticons depicting facial expressions placed sideways such as :-], or ;-) are common, along with the abbrevia- tions BTW ("by the way") and IMHO ("in my honest opinion"). Such conventions come and go; if you are confused, don't hesitate to request clarification.

Mail to the list is usually siphoned into one of several categories noted in the "subject header":

QUERY: [subject] -- The following message is a request for information. If you are asking about research aids or bibliographical references, it would be helpful if you defined the project and indicated what sources you have consulted so far.

REPLY: [subject] -- An answer to a previously-posted QUERY.

FYI: [subject] -- An announcement of a new product, service, or event that the moderators consider of interest to subscribers.

CFP: [subject]: -- Call for Papers for a conference, conference session, or anthology. The moderators will filter these to make sure that a return address is included in the message. Unless otherwise noted, please reply to that return address, not to the list, unless you wish to discuss the posting with subscribers.

CONFERENCE: [program; subject] -- Description of a conference, but without a specific call for papers.

JRNL: [title] -- An announcement of a new journal.

NEW LIST [NOT AN H-NET LIST]: -- Self-evident. H-Net frequently announces new electronic lists both affiliated and not affiliated with the organization.

COMMENT: [subject] -- A message that commences a new conversa- tional thread or that picks up and broadens an existing thread.

H-NET REVIEW: [title] -- A review of a book or electronic text or service commissioned by H-Net.

H-POL REVIEW: [title] -- A review of a book or electronic text or service commissioned by H-Pol.

REVIEW: [title] -- A review of a book or electronic text or ser- vice cross-posted from another, non-H-Net list.

JOBS: -- Self-evident; includes unique job opportunities, market conditions and prospects. This label also precedes the regular H-Net Job Guide, a service provided to all H-Net lists.

GRANTS: [title, grantor] -- Grant or fellowship opportunity.

V. Services Provided by H-Net/H-POL

To obtain a list of available documents, send a note to LISTSERV@KSUVM (or LISTSERV@KSUVM.KSU.EDU) with the following command:

The fileserver also contains the list's log: a complete archive of all list traffic. The logs are stored weekly. You can obtain a log by sending the following command as an e-mail message to LISTSERV@KSUVM.KSU.EDU:

B. The H-Net Gopher. H-Net is building a gopher at the Univer sity of Illinois-Chicago (GOPHER.UIC.EDU). The gopher contains all official announcements by H-Net, an extensive archive of user tips and files, plus individual archives for each of the H-Net lists, including H-Pol. Point your gopher client to GOP- HER.UIC.EDU and menu from RESEARCHER to HISTORY to H-Net.

Both the fileserver and the gopher will contain common-use docu- ments for our subscribers: syllabi, articles, reference tools, online training assistance, the H-Pol directory, and packages of list traffic on unique or particularly interesting subjects.

C. The H-Net Job Guide. Each week H-Net culls job postings from electronic and print sources and packages them for distribu- tion to its lists. H-Pol moderators send this out weekly as a "Job Guide Index" -- a list of job opportunities, with instruc- tions on how to obtain the detailed position descriptions. Subscribers are encouraged to send prospective job postings to

D. H-Pol Directory. We are building a directory of members as a "phone book" and archive of research interests. When you sub- scribe, you will receive a brief questionnaire for the directory. Please take a moment to fill it out and send it in, and to update it as circumstances warrant. In addition to the directory, sub- scribers may obtain a copy of the current subscription list by contacting the current moderator with a brief explanation for the reason for the request.

VI. Editorial Board.

H-Pol's daily activities are managed by the moderators. Its long-term policies are developed by the editorial board, whose members are approved by the H-Net Executive Committee and who serve renewable two-year terms. Membership on the editorial board is solicited from subscribers and from the profession in general. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact the current moderator. Board members referee incoming articles, reviews, and teaching materials; establish basic sub- scription restrictions and policy; advise the moderators on dis- putes among moderators and subscribers; monitor the list and make active contributions to discussion; and serve as the subscribers' voice in H-Net affairs. You are encouraged to contact any or all of the editorial board members with ideas and concerns about H-Pol.

Current Editorial Board, H-Pol:

John Allswang
Paul Bourke
Ballard Campbell
Richard Jensen
Peter Knupfer
Mark Kornbluh
Eileen McDonagh
Jim Mott
Richard Rubinson
Mildred Schwartz
Gil Troy
Richard Valelly
Phil VanderMeer
Dave Roberston
Gus Seligmann
Robert Johnston
Robert P. Forbes