Character-Set: UTF-8WELCOME TO THE H-DISABILITY NETWORK!
PLEASE READ AND SAVE THIS MESSAGE.

This welcome message is designed to provide you with basic information about H-Disability. It contains information on using H-Disability (managing your subscription; tips on contacting and communicating via the list; mailing addresses of the list editors; a list of the current editorial board); rules for posting (style, editorial practice); information about H-Disability's associated service on the World Wide Web; and contact information about H-Disability's parent, H-Net.

I. The H-Disability Network: Scope, Content, Purpose.

H-Disability is a scholarly discussion group that explores the multitude of historical issues surrounding the experience and phenomenon of 'disability.' H-Disability was established in response to the growing academic interest and expanding scholarly literature on issues of disability throughout the world. This discussion group serves not only to give historians an opportunity to exchange ideas,syllabi, scholarly work, and archival sources but will attract other historians of all specialties to the field. The H-Disability discussion group allows disability scholars to compare and contrast the experience of disability across time and space, including American, European and non-Western contexts. The Editorial Board and Editors of H-Disability believe that situating disability within historical context facilitates a more sophisticated understanding of the various experiences of people with disabilities.

Plans for this discussion group on disability history include listing archival locations that contain materials relevant to issues of disability and planning conference panels on disability history, as well as sharing materials for teaching and research. Such collaboration will help create a community of dedicated disability historians as the field grows. Discussion is limited to scholarly endeavors only; no postings of a personal nature are allowed. The list serves the already established academic community of disability historians in the US as well as the growing number of interested scholars around the world.

II. Editors.
The editors serve two-year renewable terms, with the approval of the H-Net Executive Committee and rotate their duties. The current editor will be identified in all messages coming from the list. The editors will solicit postings (by email, phone and even by regular mail), will assist people in managing subscriptions and setting up options, will handle routine inquiries, and will consolidate some postings. Anyone with suggestions about what H-Disability can and might do is invited to send in ideas. The editors will solicit and post newsletter-type information (calls for conferences, for example, or listings of sessions at conventions.) Like all H-Net lists, H-Disability is moderated to edit out material that, in the editors' opinion, is not germane to the list, involves technical matters (such as subscription management requests), is inflammatory, or violates evolving, yet common, standards of Internet etiquette. Please read section III below for details about ownership, style, formatting, and content of your messages. H-Net's procedure for resolving disputes over list editorial practices is Article II, Section 2.20 of our bylaws, located at:

http://www.h-net.org/about/by-laws.html

III. Communicating Through the List.

A. Copyright notice. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. H-Net considers all messages posted to its lists to be a form of publication. All contributions to H-Disability fall under Art. III, Sec. 3.01-3.08 of the H-Net concerning copyright and intellectual property:

"H-Net is a nonprofit communications service intended to advance the teaching, research, and service of scholars, educators, and students. Preserving copyright rights is a collective responsibility: H-Net users and editors must respect the intellectual property of others. Consistent with the objective of encouraging creativity in scholarship and education, editors and users are encouraged to transmit copyrighted works to or through H-Net, with the express permission of the copyright holder or in accordance with the fair use provisions of copyright law. H-Net considers posting to H-Net lists or Web, as contrasted with private e-mail correspondence, to be a form of publication." In general, the author retains copyright rights to publication of any submission to the list, and grants to H-Disability and H-Net permission to store, disseminate with full attribution, and make available to subscribers such submissions without further permission. Postings (such as H-Net reviews) that are commissioned by H-Net are copyrighted by H-Net and may be reprinted for nonprofit, educational purposes with proper attribution to the author, location, and H-Net. A full copy of the H-Net Constitution and Bylaws and other important information may be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.h-net.org/about/.

B. Contributions: "Netiquette." The tone and content of H-Disability depend directly on subscribers. The editors want to encourage lively, informal, productive discussion and exchange of information. To that end, we ask that contributions be considerate of the needs of a busy audience of scholars, many of whom must pay for their access to the internet. A number of excellent guides to online behavior and style are available on the World Wide Web; we invite you consult them.

-- ALL MAIL TO THE LIST MUST BE SIGNED. The editors will delay posting until authorship and email address are confirmed.

-- CONTENT: Editors retain the right to review material for its pertinence, tone, style, and relevance to the list's mission. Ad hominems, unattributed quotations or innuendo, private messages forwarded for posting without permission, or messages that violate the norms of civility and professional courtesy will be rejected. Persistent violators can be removed from the subscription list.

-- STYLE: the default editorial style for the list is that of a letter to the editor. Your remarks can be crafted to suit the tone of an existing discussion thread, but in any case they should address the editor and not make direct personal references to others, except where you are replying directly to a simple query (e.g., "you can find this information in Webster's Third International Dictionary."). Avoid excessive quotation of messages you refer or reply to.

-- FORMAT: Please send messages in plain text: no styles, html, special fonts, graphics files, or nonstandard characters (except diacriticals, which are acceptable). Signature files are subject to editing for content and length. Advertisements in signatures will be removed. Remove or turn off .vcf, digital signatures, or other automatic attachments. As a rule, editors do not redistribute attachments to the list; consider posting the material at a web site, or consult with the editor concerning proper venues for publication.

IV. Technical Information.

When you subscribe, LISTSERV will send you a confirmation message containing important information about managing your subscription. Please save this message as a text file for future reference. ALL changes to your subscription must be addressed to listserv@h-net.msu.edu, the software that manages the distribution and archiving of list electronic mail.

For online help with your subscription, visit: http://www.h-net.org/lists/help/ email: help@mail.h-net.msu.edu

1.) To subscribe: Normally, receiving this message from listserv indicates that you are already subscribed to the list. But should you need to resubscribe, send the following command (turn off signatures, styles/fonts, and word wrap if you expect the line to wrap), as an email message to listserv@h-net.msu.edu:

sub H-Disability your name, institution
Example: sub H-Disability Jane Smith, Illinois State U.

Follow the instructions in the reply that LISTSERV will send you in response to this command.

2.) To unsubscribe, logon to the computer account from which you subscribed to the list, and send this message to listserv@h-net.msu.edu:

SIGNOFF H-Disability

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

3.) To change your subscription address: if you have access to your old account, login to it and send the command:

CHANGE listname newaddress
E.g., CHANGE H-Disability jsmith@ilstate.edu

You then must login to the NEW account to confirm the change, or it will not be executed. If you do not have access to your old account, then write to the list address and have an editor make the change for you; be sure to provide your old and new addresses.

4.) To send your own message to all subscribers, send an email note directly to H-Disability@h-net.msu.edu. Please see III above on style and formatting of messages to the list.

5.) To REPLY to a message so that all subscribers can read it, be sure that the outgoing reply is directed to H-Disability@h-net.msu.edu, and not to the original author or to the editor. Replies intended only for individual authors should be sent directly to the author.

6.) If you are away for an extended period, suspend H-Disability email by sending this to listserv@h-net.msu.edu:

SET H-Disability NOMAIL

7.) After vacation, you can resume by sending to listserv@h-net.msu.edu:

SET H-Disability MAIL

8.) If you prefer to receive one daily digest of all posts to H-Disability instead of various individual posts, you can do so by sending this to listserv@h-net.msu.edu:

SET H-Disability DIGEST

To return to individual messages, send the following message:

SET H-Disability NODIGEST

V. The H-Disability Site on the World Wide Web

In addition to providing interactive communications via electronic mail, H-Disability also maintains a site on the World Wide Web. The site is located on the H-Net server at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. It may be located by following the hypertext links at http://www.h-net.org.The H-Disability web site contains the following information and services:

* The archives of the H-Disability list, known as its "logs." They are in searchable and sortable format.
* The network's official documents: its welcome files, lists of board members and editors, contact information, and other founding and information documents.
* Hypertext links to resources in our subject: teaching materials, research archives, other lists.

V. Advisory Board.

H-Disability's daily activities are managed by the editors. Its long-term policies are developed by the advisory board. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact the current editor. Board members referee incoming articles, reviews, and teaching materials; establish basic subscription restrictions and policy; advise the editors on disputes among editors 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-Disability.

For a list of the current advisory board, visit: http://www.h-net.org/~disabil

VI. Our Parent Organization: H-Net

H-Net is an international consortium of scholars in the humanities and social sciences that creates and coordinates electronic networks, using a variety of media, and with a common objective of advancing humanities and social science teaching and research. H-Net was created to provide a positive, supportive, equalitarian environment for the friendly exchange of ideas and scholarly resources.

The goals of H-NET networks are to enable scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new approaches, methods and tools of analysis; to share information on electronic databases; and to test new ideas and share comments on the literature in their fields.

H-Net's Constitution and Bylaws, along with a list of its officers and committees, is available at:
http://www.h-net.org/about/

Among H-Net's many services are:

* Book and software reviews: timely, exhaustive, authoritative, professional, fast. Mailed through our lists and stored in searchable, printable, retrievable format on our site at the World Wide Web. http://www.h-net.org/reviews

* Job guide postings: at regular intervals, H-Net offers employment information in a broad array of fields in the humanities and social sciences. http://www.matrix.msu.edu/jobs

* H-Net calendar: announcements of conferences, papers, and professional activities, archived and searchable at our web site. You can visit our site and sample these and other services, at: http://www.h-net.org/announce

CONTACTING H-NET FOR MORE INFORMATION

On the World Wide Web: http://www.h-net.org Electronic mail: H-NET@H-NET.msu.edu

Postal mail:

H-Net
141h Old Horticulture
506 East Circle Drive
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 432-5134
Fax: (517) 884-6994

Executive Director: Prof. Peter Knupfer
Michigan State University
E-Mail: peter@mail.h-net.msu.edu

Associate Director: Heather Hawley
Michigan State University
E-Mail: hawley@mail.h-net.msu.edu