[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Records/Archives in the News Part 01 01/23/00



Records/Archives in the News r000103a
There are 7 stories in this posting.

Houston Chronicle 01/03/00
Law requires signs alerting Texans of right to records

Huntsville Times (Alabama) 1/3/00
Taking time to preserve history

Orlando Sentinel 1/3/00
New public-records handbook places Florida at your fingertips

Denver Post 1/3/00
Arapahoe records going electronic

Billings Gazette 1/3/00
Time treasures: boxes hold the history of Missoula

San Jose Mercury News 1/3/00
Law attacks racism in deeds? fine print

Business Wire 1/3/00
VisiFLOW document imaging system builds strong case before U.S. district court


_______________________________________________________________
Houston Chronicle 01/03/00
Law requires signs alerting Texans of right to records

Associated Press
<SNIP>
FORT WORTH (AP) --Henceforth, if a city or county employee balks at providing 
access to an official document, point to the sign. 
Under a new state law, local government offices had until today to post signs 
advising Texans of their right to obtain records about almost any government 
issue or activity. 
Not only are the signs intended to alert the public about their rights to 
state and municipal government documents, but also the government staff whose 
job it is to serve the public, said state Sen. Jeff Wentworth. 
Wentworth, R-San Antonio, heads the legislative committee that spearheaded 
changes in the public information law. 
?We heard testimony from a public official in Tyler that a city employee not 
only withheld information from the public, but wouldn?t give public records 
to her,? Wentworth is quoted as saying in a story in Sunday editions of the 
Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 
?Then that employee said that if someone asked her for the information again, 
she would burn it rather than hand it over. ... We wanted to make record 
keepers aware that not only is that kind of behavior inappropriate, but 
illegal,? he said. 
Some officials are reluctant to disclose official government information, 
said Alan Greenspan, a Dallas lawyer with several media clients. 
?Some government officials perceive the relationship between themselves and 
the media as adversarial,? he said. ?They feel if they turn things over they 
will be subject to criticism.? 
Nancy Monson, Texas Freedom of Information Foundation executive director, 
notes that many government employees simply find it inconvenient to allow the 
public access to the information to which it?s entitled. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Thousands of information requests are fielded by government officials every 
year. The attorney general?s office issues opinions about whether records are 
exempt from public view at the request of government bodies. 
More than 1,300 requests for open records opinions were submitted to the 
attorney general?s office between September 1998 and September 1999, said 
Heather Browne, an attorney general?s office spokeswoman. 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Huntsville Times (Alabama) 1/3/00
Taking time to preserve history
Missionaries help county organize old records

by Kay Campbell
<SNIP>
FAYETTEVILLE, Tenn. - Open one of the ancient leather and corduroy-bound 
books from the back shelves of the Lincoln County Archives. Watch how little 
wisps of history rise out of the vellum page from the loops and swirls of the 
inked names in the book two feet tall and thick as the width of your hand. 
A time capsule for the New Year? Lincoln County has had one for years in 
these records. 
Here is the record of the county?s census, starting in 1820 when only heads 
of households were named, and the number of idiots, insane, blind, and deaf 
were counted, along with slaves or free blacks. Here are the old land grants, 
giving Revolutionary War veterans a piece of the newly acquired Territory 
South of the River Ohio. 
Here are the lawsuits after the War Between the States when county residents 
tried to get the government to reimburse them for the livestock and crops 
stolen or ruined during the Yankee occupation. Here are marriage 
certificates, deeds and wills. 
As one of the few counties to escape a fire or tornado in the courthouse, 
Lincoln County records offer historians a wealth of the material of the past. 
For some, it feels like a way to shake hands across the centuries. 
??You can read about history, but then the documents go through your hands,?? 
exclaimed Richard Gailey, sitting beside the microfilm camera he was 
operating at the archives last week. ??I?ve driven on John Sugg Road - well, 
I?ve handled John Sugg?s papers! They?re real people, not just a name on a 
sign. It?s neat to get dipped in, involved in the culture in this area.?? 
Gailey and his wife, Anne, have been working in the county archives for 
nearly four months, volunteering their time and expenses as missionaries from 
the family history ministry of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 
Saints. They are the third Mormon missionary team to come here to help the 
county order and preserve records of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, 
court cases, deeds and wills stretching back to the early 1820s, about 10 
years after the county?s incorporation. 
??It?s unreal the work they?ve done,?? said Peggy Bevels, the county 
commissioner who has overseen the resurrection of the county?s archives 
during the last 13 years. ??It would have been very, very expensive to get 
this done through the state or through contractors.?? 
She watched as Gailey centered a marriage certificate, made minute changes in 
the exposure level based on the color of the paper, snapped a picture and 
whipped the certificate over to film the back. 
The microfilm camera is on loan from the LDS genealogical services. When the 
film is processed in Salt Lake City, one roll will be sent back to the 
county, one to the state, and one roll will be kept in the extensive 
genealogical library operated by the church because of the denomination?s 
interest in families and doctrine of baptism by proxy whereby a member can be 
baptized on behalf of an ancestor. 
??People who know what they?re doing make it look easy,?? Bevels said 
admiringly as Gailey flipped the certificate onto a pile and slipped another 
into place below the camera. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
??All the hard, hard work had been done by the time the missionaries came 
in,?? Anne Gailey said as she carried the file to Richard for filming. 
Frances West, officially the county archivist now, and formerly the county?s 
genealogist, remembers the hard work. All of the records used to be stored in 
the basement of the courthouse - irreplaceable wills and court papers piled 
into boxes with more dispensable receipts or forms. 
??We worked 10 years down there getting it together,?? West said last week, 
remembering her work from the sunny den of her Fayetteville home. ??There 
were papers piled in the floor and boxes spilled out everywhere.?? 
More than 1,000 pounds of useless records were destroyed as they sorted 
through and organized the mountain of paper. Volunteers would finish a day?s 
work covered from head to toe in fine, black coal dust, since the county?s 
original court house was heated with coal. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Each page of every book and every file had to be wiped off. They used a 
putty-like wallpaper cleaner for most of it. 
Volunteers, like Jim Pitts and Shirley Cato of Tullahoma, came to help, too, 
joining local volunteers from the Lincoln County Historical Society and the 
Lincoln County Genealogical Society and other history buffs. As they got the 
records in order, some of those volunteers had to go around the county to 
retrieve some of the books and papers that had been taken from the room over 
the years. 
??People love that original copy,?? Bevels said, shaking her head as she 
opened a book reduced to a pile of paper wrapped in a leather back. ??It 
would cost $3,000 to rebind this one book. It?s very important not to let 
them get torn up or mutilated.?? 
To protect the documents, West and Bevels run the archives like any rare book 
room of a library. Housed since 1995 in the building with the county Health 
Department on West Washington Street, the archives has a waiting room, a 
sunny office room with a long table for researchers, and the darker storage 
area where the books are protected from sunlight. 
Researchers sign in during the opening hours of 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. 
Thursdays, leave their own papers and purses in a locked drawer, and use the 
pencils for the documents that West will retrieve for them. They can ask West 
to copy documents for them, but they can?t do their own copying, a rule that 
tries to protect the brittle bindings of the books. 
The new computer scanner, which will have a remote wand attachment, should 
help protect the books, too, Bevels hopes, and make it easier for researchers 
to get the information they want without tearing up the books. The county was 
able to buy the scanner, like the microfilm reader, because of grants that 
Bevels identified and applied for. 
That equipment, the organization of the records, and the building itself 
moved the state to identify the archives here as one of the top three in the 
state, and to send other county officials from across Tennessee here as they 
begin to organize their own archives. Organization of an archives has only 
been mandated in Tennessee since 1994, so many counties have ahead of them 
the work that?s been done here. 
??I?m proud of it for the county,?? Bevels said. ??And when the state 
starting noticing, I was really proud of it. It?s good for the county?s 
economy, too - people design their vacations around getting to a cemetery and 
our archives. That?s where they visit instead of going to Disney World.?? 
Historical research is more fun than Disney World, anyway, West maintains. 
??There?s so much excitement when people finally find a piece of 
information,?? said West, who has traced her own family back to the early 
1700s and discovered that she is a distant cousin of Sgt. Alvin C. York, the 
World War I hero. ??I remember one lady saying, ?Oh, I?ve been looking for 
this for years!? You get started, and you don?t want to quit.?? 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Orlando Sentinel 1/3/00
New public-records handbook places Florida at your fingertips

Associated Press
<SNIP>
JACKSONVILLE?Is the day-care center down the street licensed? Has a 
prospective employee ever been arrested? How much money did a legislative 
candidate receive from a local business leader? Is that old bridge safe to 
drive over?
Answers to these questions and hundreds of others are as close as ?The 
Florida Public Records Handbook,? written by Jacksonville writer Joe Adams 
and published by The First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee. The handbook, 
published through a grant from the National Freedom of Information Coalition 
and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, details everything you wanted 
to know about public records in Florida but didn?t know whom to ask.
The 457-page loose-leaf book contains 170 useful public records, including 
key documents which can also be found at city hall, the courthouse, state 
agencies and on the Internet. Thousands of other records are also summarized.
?I?ve always looked at public records as our friends. This was a way to 
introduce people to friends they haven?t met yet,? Adams said.
Records covered in the book include individual documents, such as deeds, 
lawsuits, police reports; regulatory and disciplinary files on licensed 
professionals; information on businesses and facilities; publications; and 
Internet resources such as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement?s Sexual 
Offender and Predator database; and the Florida Government Services Directory.
Each entry includes details about the record, why it is useful, where to get 
it, its online availability, agency phone numbers, references to other 
handbook entries with related information, and tips and traps.
An example of the ?tip and trap? in the section on divorce records reads, 
?Divorce cases can get nasty. Keep in mind that everything said or alleged in 
a divorce proceeding may be true.?
Adams said the book will be useful to reporters, political leaders and the 
average Floridian.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
The book, designed as a companion to the ?Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual,? 
includes an overview of the state?s Public Records Law, a listing of 
exemptions from the law; and a list of ombudsmen for various agencies.
?Records will tell you a lot if you take the time to look at them,? said Mark 
Middlebrook, one of the editors. ?No matter who you are or what your role in 
life is, they are extremely valuable.?
<SNIP>

_______________________________________________________________
Denver Post 1/3/00
Arapahoe records going electronic

by Ginny McKibben
<SNIP>
ARAPAHOE COUNTY - Clothbound books in the basement of the county 
administration building detail the very beginnings of a fledgling county 
nearly a century ago. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Few people have ever seen, and even fewer have touched, the early volumes. 
But under a project initiated by Clerk and Recorder Tracy Baker, the 
information will soon be unearthed and easily accessed by the public on 
computer. ?It?s very exciting. Those early documents, with the script and 
often on clothlike paper, are gorgeous,? Baker said. 
Baker said the county is spending about $500,000 to convert the original 
records to computer disks. Records slated to be scanned and entered into 
computers include the county commissioners? minutes, engineering, planning, 
zoning, and building records, Baker said. 
The public has never been able to paw over the minutes of the county 
commissioner hearings. At present, county employees copy specific documents 
for anyone asking to see them. 
But it is a costly and time-consuming process, Baker said. 
Once transferred to computers, the records can be perused at leisure by the 
public. The process will reduce manpower costs of retrieving documents, 
preserve the historic records and takes the first step in a complete 
conversion to electronic records, Baker said. 
?We will eventually be a completely paperless county,? Baker s
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Billings Gazette 1/3/00
Time treasures: boxes hold the history of Missoula

Associated Press
<SNIP>
MISSOULA (AP) - As the world ushers in a new century with all its 
technological promises, Missoula County is just catching up with events from 
the turn of the 20th century - by hand. 
With painstaking precision, deputy county clerks continue to index government 
documents into enormous leather-bound books that were first cracked open more 
than 100 years ago. 
Their signatures and notations follow those who came before and left their 
marks, first with flowery lettering scribed with ink-dipped pens, later with 
fancy ballpoint pens, said Terri Casillas, deputy clerk for the clerk of 
court. 
Casillas is helping index coroner?s inquests from as early as 1870. (May 15, 
1884: Bessie Bower died of ?excessive use of liquor and opium.? Aug. 9, 1888: 
?Chinaman unknown was murdered by being knocked in the head by parties 
unknown with rocks.? Nov. 13, 1917: Jacob Wise ?died from accidentally 
drinking carbolic acid.?) 
?What I think has changed the most is the handwriting,? she said. ?It used to 
be beautiful, artistic script and now it?s what I?d call uninspiring.? 
And then there are the changes in the ink. Marriage records of the late 1800s 
are done in midnight black. A mouse-gray ink seems the preferred choice 
during the early 1900s, until the roaring ?20s, when lavender and 
teal-colored inks enliven the pages, now yellowed with age. Basic black again 
dominates the pages toward the end of the century. 
The past, it seems, is really not that far behind us, said Marcia Porter, the 
county?s official keeper of the past and supervisor for Missoula County 
Records Management Department. 
Just days before Christmas, Porter opened a dusty box that was among a 
cluster of boxes that had yet to be microfilmed or filed in the county?s 
records center and archives. 
What she found was a treasure: the original certificate of the town site of 
Missoula (the certificate that officiates a town,) filed Feb. 14, 1879 - six 
years after C.P. Higgins deeded the property to the county in 1873. 
?Probably that certificate, no one?s seen in 100 years,? Porter said. ?I was 
so excited. I showed it to the judges and the surveyors; when you find the 
original signatures, that?s so exciting.? 
About 1 percent to 3 percent of county documents have not yet been indexed. 
And like the discovery of the Missoula?s original town site record, some are 
found in their original storage box, undisturbed for 100 years or more. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
?These records are really the history of Missoula County and western 
Montana,? Porter said. ?They tell the good, the bad and the ugly.? 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Porter discovered entries on men who divorced their wives in the early 1920s, 
one on the grounds that his wife had the audacity to come into a bar and 
fetch him home, another because his wife was sick and he and his son had to 
make their own meals. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
?Missoula County is only 135 years old and most Montana counties have those 
old records,? Porter said. 
But many communities that do not have storage room or funding for archival 
preservation have unloaded some original papers and records, and may need to 
dump more. 
?If we don?t preserve them and just start pitching them, it will all be 
lost,? Porter said. 
And the loss, said Kathryn Otto, state archivist at the Montana Historical 
Society, would be devastating, because those records are essentially the 
unique family trees of each communities. 
And for people interested in their family history, marriage and 
naturalization, records are invaluable, Porter said. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
When Porter inherited the records warehouse in 1985, she and her staff began 
the only records management program in the state, Otto said. They do all of 
their own microfilming to national archival standards, and record and store 
all government records. 
?In that respect, Missoula County is so far ahead of everybody else,? she 
said. ?They look at the entire universe of (county) government records. That? 
s very good for efficient government and cost savings; you know where 
everything is and where to find it.? 
Archivists around the country embrace the efficiency of new technologies such 
as computer scanning of records, but it does have drawbacks, Otto said. 
?There is potential disaster,? she said. ?Technology changes so rapidly. If 
you buy a system to image records and then destroy the original records, and 
that imaging machine is no longer made, you cannot migrate those records. 
Porter said she has chosen to keep all records on microfilm. Her reasoning is 
that microfilm, first used by Missoula County in the 1960s, is expected to 
last at least a hundred years. 
But microfilm and computers also mean the twilight of the age of lovely 
penmanship and leather-bound books, she said. 
?It?s definitely an end of an era,? Porter said. ?But I wouldn?t change it. 
Technology is wonderful and for accessibility, you can?t beat computers.? 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
San Jose Mercury News 1/3/00
Law attacks racism in deeds? fine print

by Karen De Sa
<SNIP>
BLACK real estate brokers across the country are launching a campaign to 
eliminate racist housing documents that once nurtured the growth of 
exclusively white neighborhoods. 
The grass-roots movement hopes to replicate nationwide a groundbreaking 
California law taking effect today that allows discriminatory language to be 
deleted from housing deeds. 
The racial restrictions have been unenforceable for decades but continue to 
exist in legal documents that must be passed on from seller to buyer. No one 
knows exactly how many houses carry such deeds, but they are widespread and 
often outrage home buyers who bother to read the fine print. 
While some say the documents are meaningless remnants of the past that should 
simply be ignored, the predominantly black National Association of Real 
Estate Brokers sees them as a modern-day civil rights issue and is pushing 
for national action. 
``It goes to the heart of the problem we have in America,?? said Ernest 
Clark, president of the brokers association. ``People think that 
racism?because they don?t lynch people anymore?doesn?t hurt. It?s a 
psychologically damaging affair when you look at what these documents say. If 
it?s translated literally, there?s nothing that tells you its unenforceable; 
you have to do some research to find out this is not a valid thing.?? 
Subdivisions throughout California and the country in the 1930s, ?40s and 
?50s were constructed with a careful social agenda folded into their 
architectural plans. Restrictive clauses in housing deeds were common, 
stating explicitly that ``Caucasian-only?? neighborhoods would allow 
minorities only as servants. 
A 1948 Supreme Court decision and subsequent state statutes made exclusion 
illegal. However, documents targeting people of African, Asian, Jewish and 
``Mongolian?? descent continue to be reproduced and distributed, typically 
with little concern. 
Pleasant Hill attorney Beth Grimm, who represents hundreds of California 
homeowner associations, said she sympathizes with those who are offended by 
racist deeds, but doesn?t think much needs to be done about them. 
``Anybody that read those things today would know they?re not important?it?s 
absurd to take it personally,?? she said. ``It?s part of past history.?? 
Black brokers who are in heated discussion with religious leaders and 
politicians at the state and federal level disagree. 
``When we look at a state that is becoming more and more diverse, with some 
communities that are already majority people of color, you?re leaving things 
in place that are going to create tension,?? said Ray Carlisle, who heads the 
real estate brokers? national investment division. ``It reinforces old fears 
and inferiority complexes that say you?re not good enough to live in a white 
neighborhood.?? 
The brokers want national legislation or a Department of Housing and Urban 
Development-sponsored effort to sweep the tattered documents permanently from 
county archives. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Last year, HUD officials investigated complaints about Bay Area restrictive 
deeds and found that they may be more than just subtle reminders of a Jim 
Crow past. 
``We found them everywhere, in every county we went to,?? said May Jaber, a 
local HUD official. ``We were told by Realtors that some people use these to 
keep people out?that it could be used even today to keep people out of 
certain neighborhoods. If you were a moderate-income person it would keep you 
away. It would scare you just by perception.?? 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Thomas Raffetto read the fine print when he bought a home in Redwood City in 
1994. His deed states: ``No person or persons other than of Caucasian race 
shall be permitted to occupy the said land or building or residence.?? 
``I was caught by a date of 1938 -- that alone interested me,?? Raffetto 
said. ``My guess is that people aren?t reading these things, because if they 
were reading them, people of these races would be reacting to them.?? 
Under California?s law, written by state Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, 
and Assemblyman Rod Pacheco, R-Riverside, county clerk recorders will attach 
a disclaimer in bold red letters on every housing deed they copy and 
distribute beginning today. The disclaimer warns that any discriminatory 
restriction is void. In addition, individual homeowners can cross out racist 
clauses and resubmit their deeds to county clerks. Tens of thousands of 
California homeowners associations will be required to do this by Jan. 1, 
2001. 
The effort has not received universal support, with a range of agencies from 
title companies to clerk recorders arguing that time and cost to alter the 
documents will be a wasted effort. 
``It?s something we would all rather quite frankly not have to deal with or 
draw attention to because it makes the consumer uncomfortable,?? said Craig 
Page, vice president and legislative counsel for the California Land Title 
Association. ``Whenever possible, you want to treat these things as if they 
don?t exist.?? 
Brenda Davis, Santa Clara County?s clerk-recorder and president of the 
California State Recorders Association, said concerns arose before the law 
was passed that the clerk?s fundamental duty as archivist and protector of 
historical documents would be compromised by having to alter housing deeds. 
And historians have similar concerns. 
Al Camarillo, a Stanford University history professor, relies on racial deeds 
to conduct research on the evolution of barrios and ghettos in California. 
Camarillo said he doesn?t support wiping these documents from the past. 
``I can see how it?s offensive, but the historian in me knows that these are 
really important to show how residential areas became racially exclusive and 
to be able to tell how communities formed,?? Camarillo said. 
But the real estate brokers say they are tired of being reminded of past 
indignities. 
<SNIP>


________________________________________________________________
Business Wire 1/3/00
VisiFLOW document imaging system builds strong case before U.S. district court
<SNIP>
CULVER CITY, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE) - The United States District Court for 
the District of Nevada has implemented the VisiFLOW document imaging system 
from Datamax Technologies Inc. that enables it to access documents from 
anywhere, at any time, with little or no delay in processing the request. 
According to David Settles, the court?s project coordinator, the United 
States District Court for the District of Nevada, which sits in both Las 
Vegas and Reno, will soon be able to share case files while significantly 
reducing the handling costs. With judges located in Reno handling 
approximately 30% of the Las Vegas case filings, the court is constantly 
burdened with the cost of shipping documents. They also face the problem of 
having additional documents filed in Las Vegas while the actual case file is 
in Reno. 
?We had developed our own case management system, Nevada Electronic Docketing 
(NED), and we wanted the ability to integrate it with the VisiFLOW system,? 
Settles explained. ?We will soon create a system whereby court personnel can 
find the case file to be reviewed and view the actual documents within that 
file without launching an additional application.? With the integration of 
VisiFLOW and NED, nothing more than a mouse click will be needed to bring the 
requested document to the user?s desktop. As a result, the court will 
significantly reduce the time spent searching for the document in the file 
room or locating the document if it has been checked out for review or 
processing. In addition, the new imaging system will allow the Court to 
deploy an Internet interface to the case files within the system. 
According to Bix Kroener, Datamax Technologies general manager, the court 
assessed numerous factors when reviewing competing vendors? products. These 
included end user interface, ability to program future applications, overall 
product cost, operating system and database program, ease of use and 
installation, company reputation and client references, and its ability to 
integrate with NED. 
?We are very pleased that we were selected by the U.S. District Court as 
their document imaging system of choice,? Kroener said. ?It is another strong 
indicator of our commitment to the public sector and we will continue to 
deliver business process automation solutions that improve productivity, 
increase customer service and streamline communications.? Settles also 
reported that initial system implementation and training was completed in 
less than one week. The system configuration includes Microsoft NT and SQL 
Servers running on a Compaq Proliant 5500. In addition, since the initial 
installation, the Court has developed two additional applications and 
numerous plans for further applications. In the future, the Court plans to 
incorporate many enhancements to meet their increasing requirements for data 
access and the need to timely file legal documents, Settles noted. Some of 
those include electronic filing of court documents over the Internet and 
automatic e-mail or faxing of documents to parties. These enhancements would 
allow attorneys and all other interested parties ready access to case files. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Datamax Technologies? VisiFLOW Business Process Automation System features 
integrated workflow, electronic document management, COLD, CTI integration, 
forms recognition, and Web based workflow for automating business processes 
to maximize savings per transaction. Further information on Datamax 
Technologies can be obtained by phone at 310/645-4199, fax 310/645-4197, 
email info@dtmx.com or on the Web at www.dtmx.com. 
With headquarters in Culver City, Datamax Technologies Inc. is a privately 
held provider of workflow, electronic document management (EDM), COLD and 
forms recognition software, as well as enterprise wide call center solutions. 
Founded in 1993, the company has evolved into a national leader in 
transaction-based, high volume production systems. Major clients include 
Lockheed Martin, the Federal Aviation Administration, Clorox, Houston Police 
Department and Scottsdale Insurance, among others. 
<SNIP>





PETER A.KURILECZ CRM, CA
PAKURILECZ@AOL.COM

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>