Dear Colleague,

Lisp Pointers was conceived in late night discussions at the l986 Lisp and Functional Programming Conference in Boston, and you are present at its birth. We hope that what we have created together will enjoy a long and useful life.

This newsletter is meant to provide a timely forum for information on Lisp in all its diverse manifestations. Since we consider Scheme to be a relative of Lisp, information on Scheme will be part of our scope. That scope will not include Prolog, however, since the topic seems adequately covered in available forums.

Lisp Pointers is organized around a set of departments. You will find a list of department heads at the front of this issue, along with directions for submissions. The number of departments will inevitably vary over time as we discover what your concems really are. If you are not sure into which department your contribution would fit, feel easy just sending to a reasonable choice and we'll take it from there. We hope that you will find this newsletter both informative and interesting. If you do, it will be because of your support and contributions. lf you have any suggestions for making this a better publication, we encourage you to contact any of us. After all, that's part of what Letters to the Editor are all about.

This issue of Lisp Pointers is sponsored by IBM Research. As long as we are not affiliated with a professional organization, we are forced to rely on the sponsorship of companies. Each issue will be reproduced and mailed by a sponsor. We can only continue in this manner as long as we can find companies willing to help. If you think your organization would like to become a sponsor, please contact me for information. Our approach to running a newsletter has natural limitations, and so we will be investigating the possibilities of fmding a professional umbrella for Lisp Pointers. More about that in future issues.

There are three ways you could have gotten onto this mailing list:

1. you asked (and we were ecstatic);
   
   
2. you attended the Lisp and Functional Programming Conference in 1986; and
   
   
3. I know you enough to know that this is just down your alley.

At some future point, we may have to pare our mailing list. If that happens, I will warn you in several future issues. After a reasonable length of time, I will then drop those people who did not explicitly ask to join.

And speaking about mailing lists. We may choose to make a single copy of the mailing labels for Lisp Pointers available to a sponsoring company that requests it, for a single commercial mailing. For this reason, and also to be prepared in case we do come under the umbrella of a professional organization that sells mailing lists, I want to ask anyone who does not want their name made available to let me know, and I'll so mark your address entry. And now, on to the newsletter.

Mary S. Van Deusen
Editor