/ Posting / keep up to date and in contact by means of a news group or mail-list.  Also check postings available at many of the fan organized sites (Pooh, Oz, Seuss, series books, etc.) or sponsor sites (Disney family, Mining company Childbooks, publishers, etc.) for they offer or refer you to bulletin boards, chat rooms, mailing lists, newsletters, newsgroups, web site rings.

News groups are essentially electronic bulletin boards. Unlike mail-lists, most groups require no registration. You can just visit the group, read the posted notices, and respond or post your own. Postings remain for a limited time, and are replaced by new ones. News group archives can be searched using DejaNews www.dejanews.com/. Here are just a few relating to books: news:alt.books, news:alt.marketplace.books, news:rec.arts.books, news:rec.arts.books.childrens, news:rec.arts.books.hist-fiction, news:rec.arts.mystery, news:rec.arts.books.marketplace, news:rec.collecting.books, news:misc.writing, news:alt.arts.storytelling, check them out and decide which one meets your needs or find one on your own.

Mail-Lists differ from News Groups, in that you must subscribe which sometimes includes a fee, and messages are posted to all other members via e-mail, rather than "bulletin-board style" on a web page. When you send a message it goes to each subscriber on the list. Similarly, you receive all messages posted by other list members. Most mail-lists provide a "digest" form, which groups many messages together, and sends them to users as single e-mails during the week instead of as posted.

http://www.internetbookinfo.com/ IBIC list of about 50 book related news groups everything from Stephen King to Tolkien.

http://www.trussel.com/f_books.htm   Books and Book Collecting: see detailed descriptions and connect to 10 mail-lists for book collectors, librarians, and booksellers. Also connect to bookseller lists and associations.

http://www.litterascripta.com/lists.html    A large selection of mail-lists and news groups provided by Deanna Ramsay.  "I'm kind of a mailing list junkie. On the off-chance that anyone else shares my little vice, here are something over 400 mailing lists for readers and collectors."

http://www.winsor.edu/library/libguide.htm#Lists The Public Service Librarian's Professional Guide to Internet Resources provided by The Winsor School Library, Boston MA. This page links you to, and tells you how to get on list servers (mailing lists), with some 20 plus described.

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/bookarts/ Book Arts-L, Discussion on all facets of the book arts.

http://www.educ.ucalgary.ca/cgi-bin/interaction$/forum/readers?&outdated=5 CLWG David Brown's Readers Helping Readers board

http://www.carolhurst.com/newsletters/newsletters.html Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Web Site: for teaching ideas, one of the best sites on the Web. Subscribe online to her Newsletter.

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Culture/WFNS/resources.html Resources for Writers, a series of lists of on-line resources for writers.

http://www.inkspot.com/ Ink Spot for free bi-weekly newsletter, Inklings. Keep up to date with the latest writing related resources, market news, interviews with authors and articles for writers, and its FAQ pages for writers.

http://www.penguinputnam.com/clubppi/index.htm Penguin Books Readers' Guides for reading groups.

http://paml.net/ Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists with a search engine to help you find an appropriate mailing list.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/about/subscribe.asp   Publishers Weekly discussion links: reading groups, booksellers group, the web and more including subscribing to their daily e-mail news letter.

http://www.indiana.edu/~sharp/sharp-l.html SHARP-L, Discussion on the history of printing culture.

Web Site Ring is a community of sites with a common interest and site jumper buttons usually going to previous site, next site, member list, random site or join the ring. To see some examples and to try one out go here.

http://www.webring.org/#ringworld Web Ring Directory, is an index of most of the rings on the web. Search by topic and see a short description with how many members.

http://www.litterascripta.com/ringlist.html Web Rings for Book Lovers, another detailed list from Deanna Ramsey

http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=childlit&list A Children's Literature Gathering

http://members.tripod.com/~PHILKON/ring.html The History Ring. This ring is dedicated to internet sites which feature historical information.

http://members.tripod.com/~eruantalon/tolkien/webrings.html Inklings Webring: for Tolkien.

http://www.rarebooks.org/RareBookRing.htm Rare Book Ring: for collectable book authors and illustrators, book collecting and related topics.

http://www.rarebooks.org/Childrens/ChildrensQ198.htm Children's Literature Ring: specializes in children's literature http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3777/ring.html explains the ring while the first is a member site.

http://www.eskimo.com/~tegan/ac/ The Aquaman Web site with links to other comic book sites by way of the comic book ring.

Children's Books Central  A PLACE TO START  for the writers, readers, collectors, illustrators, librarians, teachers, parents, publishers, printers, storytellers and kids.
Maintained by Eleanor's Books currently offering Old Friends & New Faces
a wonderful collection of stories from the 1800's.
http://www.eleanorsbooks.com   A PLACE TO START © 2001 Eleanor's Books