Update Package Command

Could someone tell me if this works in Poitou? What do I have to do to get it to work? I have been updating the package by hand and would like to be able to get them automatically. I haven't tried this as root but it seems logical that I'd have to be root to do it as I can't write to the /usr/local/lib/xemacs/packages/ directory as user rebecca. Sorry I haven't been following things closely, but new job and finishing a novel and being seduced by Gnome for a while took me off track (I've dropped Gnome). -- Rebecca Ore