Sorry to dispute Lisa F., but that is not correct. If the list archives were private, posts from them would not show up as search results when one Googled the list; I just Googled the subject tag of a list I'm on whose archives are private (that list isn't a Freelists list), and no go. Further, if it were private, one would be asked to authenticate their subscription by being prompted to sign in with the email address with which they're subscribed (since Freelists does not also require a password for changing list options) before they could view them, which one is not prompted to do; in the list I mentioned earlier, run using Mailman (in which one can specify whether archives are to be public or private), I enter my subscription email address and password to gain access to archives. With Yahoo Groups, for example, one can specify whether list archives are to be public or membership only, but even if they are public, one has to sign in to Yahoo with a valid ID and password in order to gain access to them (for private archives, one additionally must associate their Yahoo account with the lists of which he/she is a member, which can be easily done upon subscription). With Freelists, the only point in signing up seems to be that doing so lets one create his/her own lists and update requests for lists for which he/she is able to do so. Additionally, I've checked the list archives of a list to which I'm not subscribed just now, and I had no problems doing so. If you'd like to try it out for yourselves, go to freelists.org, and click on the Archives link. You'll be presented with an alphabetical list of the lists on Freelists, so click on one, and there you go. Just to be absolutely positive that I was correct, I just unsubscribed now, checked the archives without a problem, and resubscribed. FYI, Maria Skype: MariaKristic AIM: MCKristic Email/MSN: maria6289@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Google Talk: Maria.Kristic@xxxxxxxxx Yahoo Messenger: mariakristic@xxxxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of E. Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:40 AM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] list archives and who can read them Somebody on this list was concerned that archives of this list and the other bookshare list are available to anyone on the internet. I checked with Lisa Friendly. The archived messages are only available to somebody who subscribes to the list. Hope that makes people feel comfortable. Thanks again to those of you who have been kind while I have been a bit jumpy this past month or so. Life will probably get calmer for me as all things move in cycles. E. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.