The author recommends investigating the "COOL SITES OF THE DAY" at [URL: http://www.infi.net ] and looking at the archival "Cool Sites". Look into the "BEST OF THE NET AWARDS" at [URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu]. One of the premier methods of learning about the internet is The Internet Hunt at [URL: http://gopher.cic.net] or at: [URL: http://gopher.cni.org] which runs a contest each month consisting of questions which can be answered from sources on the Net.0 The Hunt questions and answers for the last two years are archived on Anonymous FTP at: [URL: http://ftp.cic.net] Try it and see how you rank against the experts. Note some customary questions received in your department and see if an answer can be found on the Net. Save useful sites in quicklists, hotlists, bookmarks, or in notebooks or card files on the reference desk. This can form the basis for an internal catalog of Internet sites. Consider organizing these sites into categories and constructing your own Home Page.
This is not to say that there are no difficulties in the process. Unlike a traditional library which may weed out some documents every few years, items on the Internet have the property of appearing and disappearing with little notice. Our knowledge of sources seems to survive for a day rather than a lifetime! Sites may be gone for a short time, may simply be under construction, or may disappear forever. Some sites are very, very busy and hard to access. Sometimes traffic is so heavy that one never seems to be able to access a known site. (Veronica sites are a good example.) The problem of access brings us to the question of the time of day at the location where we are using the Internet. At 2pm Eastern Standard Time in the United States it is often extremely difficult to access any sources because the busy Eastern seaboard has occupied them fully. In Europe, US sources should be more easily accessed during the day than is the case for librarians in the United States. More heavily trafficked local sites can often be more easily accessed early in the morning and late in the evening.
Maintenance of your selected sites is critical. Preferred sites need to be accessed frequently to see if they still exist and if indeed, they are still providing current data. If links to gopher or Web sites have been set up in your own facility then a specified person must be given the responsibility of checking and maintaining those links on a regular basis.
One cannot break the Internet. It was built to survive nuclear attacks. So jump in and start searching!
Good Luck and Happy Hunting. : -)
Our users do not want to spend hours lost in the Net, they want librarians to find the answers for them. Even more, they would like customized service specifically designed for their needs. We beli eve that with sophisticated search tools and access to such a large database of information readily available on the Internet it will be possible for librarians to provide this customized service. W ith sufficient knowledge and practice librarians can build a database of sites particular to each client. Librarians will continue to carry on the traditional role of filtering from the mass of infor mation the particular gems needed by our users, or alternatively, instructing the users in how to find it themselves. That which is non-traditional is that the body of information from which we sele ct will be much greater, more fluid, and will require new sorts of expertise.
With each new technological change in the communication of information, there is talk of the demise of librarians. In fact, we will be even more essential to keep up with the exponentially increasing new sites, ferreting out the good ones, and providing a filter for users. However, before one can exploit the data available on the Internet, one must be aware of its existence. To address this &qu ot;resource discovery" question is the purpose of my presentation. The two Internet sources which I will address will be Gopher and the World Wide Web. Some mention will be made of LISTSERVS, F TPs, and NewsNet but they are left for individual exploration. Pointers to useful sites, tools to help on the hunt for treasures, methods by which resources can be located, and lists of sites that h ave proven valuable will be recommended which can be used to find nuggets of information efficiently and successfully.
Rice University, USA. [URL: gopher://riceinfo.rice.edu]. Select /Information by Subject /Search by Veronica and Jughead/. One of the oldest and best dev eloped sites in the world, Rice has an extensive subject list and sublists which are updated weekly. For example, under the subject "Economics and Business" there are over 350 subdirectori es and documents pointing to further subdivisions and documents.
Australian National University. [URL: gopher://info.anu.edu.au]. Select /Electronic Library - Internet Resources by Subject /Resources classified by subject/. The Web address is [URL: http://www.anu.edu.au/anu_www.html ]. The tree is arranged by LC classification and searchable with Veronica and Jughead. ANU is particularly strong in the social sciences where the Coombs data bases provide outstanding searchable information on demography, population, and Asian Pacific studies.
Bath University, United Kingdom. [URL: gopher://ukoln.bath.ac.uk ]. This tree, arranged by UDC classification, can be located by selecting /BUBL Informatio n Service/Internet Resources by Subject/ BUBL Subject Tree/. The directory can be searched with the "/" key which will lead to extensive subdirectories and documents.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA. [URL: gopher://sunsite.unc.edu]. Select /World of Sunsite/. The "sunsites" are joint projects with Sun Microsystems Co.; they provide fast access, particularly as they have worldwide mirror sites. This site is also an excellent source for US government documents, under the directory /US and Worl d Politics/ including a searchable CIA World Fact book, US Supreme Court documents, White House documents, and Federal Information Resources. The Web sunsite at [URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu] has Lycos and Harvest search engines, and the latest Web statistics.
Kent State University, USA. [URL: gopher://refmac.kent.edu]. Select /Internet Resources by Subject/. This is the home site for the searchable /Directory of Scholarly Electronic Conferences/ an excellent source for accessing a particular bulletin board or discussion group. Under /Business and Economics/ can be found TQM information, the Economics working paper archive, the Economic Bulletin Board, and /Business Sources on the Net/ some 14 lengthy bibliographies on business subjects. Selecting /Electronic Journals/ accesses the Electronic Journal archive from [URL: gopher.cic.net] and the Internet Hunt. The directory/Internet Training and Information/ contains the Michigan bibliographies and Gopher Jewels.
The Swedish University Computer Network maintains an extensive subject tree at [URL: gopher://gopher.sunet.se]. It includes a table of contents which lists both topic and sub menus and documents and has WAIS searching. Sunic also operates the root gopher server for Europe and maintains the core backbone (Ebone) for 27 European countries. The type of services offered in each of these countries and their technical connectivity arrangements are outlined here.
STUDY CARRELS are similar to subject trees. The most useful can be found at Washington and Lee University, USA. [URL: gopher://liberty.uc.wlu.edu]. To reach the list of searchable study carrels select /Finding Gopher Resources/ Search High Level Gopher Menus by Jughead/. By selecting /Jughead/ one accesses an index to some 275 searchable world wide gopher sites. WLU and Rice are the best Jughead sites available.
North Carolina State University, USA. [URL: gopher://dewey.lib.ncsu.edu], select /NCSU's Library Without Walls/Study Carrels/. This site also provides ma ny US government documents, a collection of electronic journals and books, and Jughead searching.
GOPHER JEWELS at The University of Southern California, USA. [URL: gopher://cwis.usc.edu]. Select /Other Gophers and Information Resources/Gophers by Subject/11 Gopher Jewels offers an "alternative to the more traditional subject tree design" providing information by category searchable with Jughead. One can jump up one menu level or to the top menu from any directory. This site also provides pointers to gophers by subject from Michigan State University, Sweden, BUBL at UK, and Rice . It is also a good site for finding US government information under /US Government Gopher Servers/. A good secondary source for Gopher Jewels is [URL: gopher://wings.buffalo.edu] which also lists other gophers which contain subject trees.
SUBJECT BIBLIOGRAPHIES [URL: gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu]. Select /inetdirs/Search full texts of these Guides/ and at [URL: http://www.clearinghouse.net/index.html] This is the major site for the "Clearinghouse of Subject Oriented Resources Guides", a large collection of bibliographies arranged by subject. This list provides some of the most important guides on the Net. In an area of particular interest it is worth downloading the related guide and checking through the suggested internet sites.
The Web is easily accessed through browsers which can interpret hyperlinks and use them to move from one document to another using a standard form of address called a Universal Resource Locator (URL) . Some of the most popular browsers are Mosaic, Netscape, and Lynx (text only).
WEB SEARCH ENGINES. There are several search engines for searching the Web. Below are some of the more popular ones.
The Webcrawler at [URL: http://www.cs.Washington.edu/WebCrawler/WebQuery.html] indexes titles, URLs, and contents.
The World Wide Web Worm (WWWW) at [URL: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/home/mcbryan/WWWW.html]. WWWW has an excellent tutorial page, searches subjects and addresses, but is built from page titles rather than contents.
CUI W3 catalog from the University of Geneva at [URL: http://cuiwww.unige.ch/w3catalog] searches directories of Web documents.
Nexor Home Page in the UK provides access to the Aliweb search engine at
[URL: http://web.nexor.co.uk/public/aliweb/aliweb.html]
Nexor also lists all Archie sites on the web at
Einet Galaxy at [URL: http://galaxy.einet.edu] or [URL: http://www.einet.net] contains a fully searchable topical index which allows entry into a wide variety of internet sources. It is said to currently contain some 130,000 links!
Yahoo at [URL: http://www.yahoo.com] is another massive index of Web pages organized in subject categories. There is excellent depth to the Yahoo tree. Its sites "What's cool", "What's popular", and "What's New" are useful to check on a periodic basis. It is a particularly good source for investment and financial information links.
Planet Earth Home Page (PEHP) at [URL: http://godric.nosc.mil/planet_earth/info.html] has a smaller index of subjects but a nice "Getting Started" page. It is particularly useful if you are familiar with the named clickable sources. It divides its "library" into 13 rooms with each room containing 17 "shelves" of linkable information.
Scott Yanoff's List, "Internet Services Special Directory", is another lengthy, topical index and frequently updated list of sites and documents located at [URL: http://www.uwm.edu/Mirror/inet.services.html] and [URL: gopher://csd4.csd.uwm.edu] For gopher menus select /Remote Information Servers/Special Internet Connections/.
Tips for Web Spinners at [URL: http://gagme.wwa.com/~boba/tips.html] provides information on how to develop your own home page. It also provides links to browsers, search engines, and other interesting sites including the "Cool Site of the Day".
Lund University, Sweden [URL: http://www.ubs.lu.se//wwwindex.html] is the site of the Nordic WWW/WAIS project - an experimental program for automatic detection and classification of WAIS databases featuring a WWW front end.
United Nations. [URL: gopher://gopher.undp.org] and [URL: http://www.undp.org] This site includes major UN documents, current information, conferences, Security Council resolutions, press releases and briefings, and the UN currency exchange rates. It provides access to the International Atomic Energy Agency, North Atlanti c Treaty Organization, The World Bank and other related agencies.
European Union. [URL: http://europa.eu.int/] provide a discussion and description of the European Commission. The European Union home page is at [URL: http://s700.uminho.pt/ec.html ] At [URL: http://www.helsinki.fi/~aunesluo/eueng.html] there is information on both the European Union and the European Commission.
United States. [URL: gopher://gopher.marvel.gov] and at [URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov] is the most powerful site for US government information as well as a gateway to the Library of Congress catalog. It provides access to the "Thomas" Congressional gopher which contains digests and full texts of bills, to governm ent press releases, NTIS, the US budget, the CIA World factbook, NATO and NAFTA documents, other national constitutions, and to the popular White house site at [URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov] where pictures of the Presidential family and the Whitehouse building can be seen.
[URL: gopher://gopher.stat-usa.gov] or [URL: http://www.stat-usa.gov] is the primary site for access to the National T rade Data Bank (NTDB). The NTDB is the US Government's "most comprehensive source of world trade data", an exceptional source for export opportunities by industry, company, and product, an d foreign companies or importers looking for specific products. It includes the Russian Defense Conversion database which lists joint opportunities for international companies. This is a heavily used source for international information.
[URL: gopher://gopher.nih.gov] and [URL: http://www.nih.gov] provide access to documents from the National Institute of Healt h. Select /Gopher Tunnel/Wais-based-info/ to obtain the alphabetical list of WAIS servers, the NIH phone book, molecular biology databases and to GenBank, the Genome Project, etc. The Web site also includes Cancernet, and Aids Information.
[URL: gopher://umslvma.umsl.edu] Select /library/government information/ This site, at the University of Missouri, contains a subject tree listed under /Subj ect Area Resources/ but its major value is its extensive listing of US government documents. /In the News/ section is the gateway to current information which might include the newly proposed US budg et, GATT news, and the Republican Contract with America. Under the directory /Full Text Government Documents/ can be found the Army Area Handbooks, Background notes of the State Department, and the CIA World Factbook; all containing useful information on countries worldwide.
Latin America. The primary gateway for information about Latin America is at the University of Texas at [URL: gopher://info.lanic.utexas.edu] Select /La tin American General Information/Latin America and Caribbean Economic and Social Data Base USAID/ to find current statistics for Latin America both by region and country. Red Cientifica Peru [URL: gopher://chasqui.rcp.net.pe] or [URL: http://ekeko.rcp.net.pe/] has excellent searching tools and Internet instruction in the Spanish language.
Canada. [URL: gopher://gopher.stat.ca] or [URL: gopher://gopher.usask.ca] This site also has Jughead and Veronica.
[URL: http://info.ic.gc.ca/champlain/champlain.html] still under construction, searches all known federal, provincial, and local government sites using the Harvest search engine.
An extensive menu of government agencies is located at [URL: gopher://gopher.nstn.ca] Select /Internet Public libraries/.
United Kingdom. [URL: http://www.coi.gov.uk] provides links to press releases from UK government departments including the Bank of England, Department of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Defence, etc.
[URL: http://www.fco.gov.uk] is the home page for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and lists foreign policy speeches and press conferences.
Baltic. [URL: http://www.viabalt.ee/] Some government information about Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania may be found here although this is primarily a site for business in the Baltic area.
Hungary. [URL: http://www.meh.lu/kum.htm] provides some political documents and addresses of Hungarian political figures.
Russia. [URL: http://www.pitt.edu/~CJP/rees.html] brings together a large body of material on the nations of the former Soviet Union, some of which co ntains government information.
Australia. [URL: http://www.nla.gov.au] is currently under construction but plans for a guide to federal, state, and local government information by subject is wel l underway. It also includes the Parliamentary budget and information from government agencies.
Israel. [URL: gopher://israel-info.gov.il] provides information about the Israeli government.
Kroll, Ed. The Whole internet: User's Guide & Catalog. 2nd edition, Sebastopol,CA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1994. This is THE basic Internet reference.
Comer, Douglas. The Internet Book: Everything You Need to Know about Computer Networking and How the Internet Works. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995.
December, John and Neil Randall. The World Wide Web Unleashed: Everything You Need to Master the Web. Indianapolis, IN: Sams Publishing, 1994.
Gaffin, Adam. Everybody's Guide to the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. This was originally published on the net as The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet.
Kehoe, Brendan P. Zen and the Art of the Internet: a beginner's guide. 3rd edition. Prentice-Hall, 1994.
The list of LISTSERVS can be obtained in a set of 14 files by anonymous FTP to: [URL: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/] in the /pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists directory.
Kovacs Scholarly Electronic Conferences provides a searchable list of listservs at [URL: http://www.mid.net/KOVACS] and at [URL: gopher://gopher.usask.ca]
For more information on Usenet see:
Pfaffenberger, Bryan. The Usenet Book: Using and Surviving Electronic Newsgroups on the Internet. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995.
Some public Veronica servers are listed below:
telnet quake.think.com
telnet wais.com
telnet sunsite.unc.edu
telnet info.funet.fi (login:info)
telnet wais.nis.garr.it (login: wais)
telnet swais.cwis.uci.edu
Some Archie public servers are listed below:
Canada archie.cs.mcgill.ca Austria archie.unive.ac.at Finland archie.funet.fi Germany archie.th-darmstadt.de Italy archie.unipi.it Sweden archie.luth.se Switzerland archie.switch.ch United Kingdom archie.doc.ic.ac.uk Australia archie.au New Zealand archie.nz Israel archie.ac.il Japan archie.wide.ad.jp NJ, USA archie.internic.net Maryland, USA archie.sura.net
For archie plex server: [URL: http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/Doc/archieplex-httpd.html]
For help: archie-group@bunyip.com
Mirror sunsites can be found at
[URL: http://redsun.cs.msu.su/moscow/]
[URL: http://sunsite.doc.is.ac.uk]
[URL: http://sunsite.kth.se]
[URL: http://sunsite.huji.ac.il]
This tree is mirrored at Bilkent University, Turkey.
[URL: gopher://bilkent.edu.tr]
Gopher Jewels mirror sites are at
[URL: gopher://gopher.info.monash.edu.au]
[URL: gopher://gopher.bilkent.edu.tr]
[URL: gopher://gopher.technicon.ac.il]
[URL: gopher://gopher.csv.warwick.ac.uk]
On the Web at: [URL: http://galaxy.einet.net/GJ/index.html]
Wiggins, Richard. The Internet for Everyone: A Guide for Users and Providers. McGraw-Hill, NY. 1995.
This is an excellent resource for the beginning and advanced net user.
A discussion of two Web search engines, Lycos and Harvest, by John December appears at [URL: http://www.rpi.edu/~decemj/cmc/mag/1994/sep/spiders.html]
Mirrors for the CUI W3 catalog can be found at[URL: http://www-resus.univ.mrs.fr] and [URL: http://www.winc.com]
At the mirror site for Aliweb at [URL: http:/www.leo.org.www_index/aliweb.html] in Germany there is a tutorial for searching both in the German and the English language.
Cancernet is mirrored in Singapore at [URL: http://biomed.nus.sig] and [URL: gopher.biomed.nus.sig]
New hunts can also be found at the USENET newsgroup alt.internet.services and at Anonymous [URL: FTP://ftp.nic.surnet.nl]
Information about gophers is obtainable from the mother site of all gophers, the University of Minnesota at [URL: gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu] Select / about gophers/how to get software and FAQs/
New Electronic Journal listings can be found at: [URL: gopher://ccat.sas.upenn.edu] Select /E publications and Resources/Directory of Electronic Journals an d Newsletters/1994/ARL Directory/Electronic Journals & 'Zines/
New Listings on the Net. How to find out about them? Subscribe to LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET Subscribe NEWLIST first name last name
New gopher sites are listed at [URL: gopher://liberty.uc.wlu.edu] Select /finding gopher resources/all gophersites/new gophers/
Net Happenings. This list includes pointers to a large number of repostings from lists of new and updated sites including new Gopher Jewels. Subscribe to majordomo@is.internic.net "subscribe net-happenings" Another source for net happenings is: [URL: http://www-iub.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/nethaps/]
For a list of lists send e-mail to the mail-server@sri.com or mail-server@crvax.sri.com. in body "send interest groups" The lists of lists can also be obtained in a set of about 14 files updated monthly, by Anonymous FTP to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu in the /pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists directory.
For lessons on how to navigate the Internet. gopher://wings.buffalo.edu Select /Access the Internet/What is the Internet/Let's go Gopherin'/Navigate the Internet/.
or FTP ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Select /navigate/* or /gophern/* These two addresses provide the text of beginning courses on the Internet.
Annotated Book Review Lists can be found at Anonymous FTP at sluaxa.slu.edu Directory /pub/millesjg. Filename is newuser.faq This list is also available on the World Wide Web at [URL: http://lawlib.slu.edu/newusers.htm] and Anonymous FTP at [URL: ftp://ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu] Directory /nettrain/ Filenames are nettrain.revs_1; nettrain.revs_2; nettrains_revs3; nettrain.revs_4
[URL: gopher://gopher.babson.edu] Select /Internet/Information/Internet Bibliography/ Written by Hope Tillman this appears to be the most comprehensive and up to date of the review sites.
Bill Goffe's Guide to Subject Oriented works on the Internet is updated about every 5 weeks. [URL: gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/inetdirs]
Electronic texts are available at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford gopher site at [URL: gopher://gopher.rsl.oc.ac.uk] Select /librarian's corner/ Alex/ which can be browsed by author, date, host, language, subject, title or searched by keyword. Also select from the main menu /Browse by subject/Internet/ Many electronic guides to the Internet are available in full text here including Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet; EFF Guide to the Internet; Internet Basic, Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet; Zen and the Art of the Internet; Use r Guidelines, and Unofficial Smilie Dictionary. There is a mirror site at North Carolina University [URL: gopher://dewey.lib.ncsu.edu] Select /Library Without Walls/Reference Desk/Guides/.