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However, try as we may to be purists about the ideals of our discipline, researching records and publishing our selections for our reading community, ultimately what that reading community sees is filtered--by those very groups we might wish to eliminate from that vision, our patrons. Even if we say that we will bypass the publishers and funding agencies, and go straight to the original documents, led by our interests, in fact, many documents were produced at the request of authorities who shaped their existences, such as city chamberlains' and wardens' clerks accounting methods; heads of families, for whom household accounts were kept, or for whom accounts of family lineage were compiled, or for whom "entertaining reading" was written, assembled, illustrated, bound, and put on display in the patron's library. Generations of researchers who pick up documents (in manuscript or printed edition) have had their expectations shaped by what they see, their prior reading experience, and some of those readers are among those who will determine what is acceptable for production when the next edition of documents comes along. The study of codicology deals with many of these issues, but I am not an expert in this field. Perhaps some of the same guidelines used in that field would inform a study of modern diplomatics research? I recall that Leonard Boyle's course in Diplomatics at PIMS was very useful; in it we studied documents, their production, audience, and context; perhaps he would be someone to consult, for publications and names of others working in the field. Thus, I agree that an analysis of records research and publication can be made, but without all of the five audience groups taken into consideration, the analysis would be skewed. (A similar issue arises every year in my advanced expository writing course at Lynchburg College, which includes students who claim to be "creative writers," not writing for audiences beyond those who are willing to appreciate "creative writing," a Romantic notion that artistic expression is not to be tainted by commerce, patrons, editors, or publishers. One writes for oneself, these students claim, and the audience will sort itself accordingly. The extreme opposite view is that one writes, like journalists (or students), as assigned.) This kind of work, at both theoretical and practical ends, or "The Rhetoric of Records Research" could be a fascinating book-length study. I hope that someone takes up the project! Elza C. Tiner Lynchburg College