[52] in Information Retrieval
Internet browsers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ganderso@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jan 14 08:44:58 1992
From: ganderso@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: elibdev@MIT.EDU
Cc: tat@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 92 08:43:40 EST
Thought some of this would be useful info.
Greg
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From: Edward Vielmetti <emv@MSEN.COM>
Subject: Re: An Internet Browser
X-To: cnidir-l@unmvm.unm.edu
X-Cc: beast!david@uunet.uu.net, caasi@uscelx.sdsu.edu,
nic-interest@cic.net
To: Eric Celeste <efc@Athena.MIT.EDU>, marilyn geller <mgeller@Athena.MIT.EDU>,
Tom Owens <owens@Athena.MIT.EDU>,
Greg Anderson <GANDERSO@Athena.MIT.EDU>
A number of the directories mentioned in Lee Ratzan's excellent
summary of internet reference works are available on-line and
searchable in WAIS and gopher servers. I'll go through the
list one area at a time & also note where current discussion
and development is going on.
FOCUS AREAS:
- - Library catalogs and bibliographic databases
The newly formed Usenet newsgroup "comp.internet.library" covers
on-line catalogs as well as on-line bibliographies and other materials.
The "hytelnet" mailing list notes new on-line telnet'able resources.
The Billy Barron / Peter Scott on-line directory is available from
the "hytelnet.src" WAIS server running on sol.acs.unt.edu.
The Art St. George on-line directory is available from the
"online-libraries-st-george" WAIS server running at quake.think.com.
- - Electronic mailing lists and listservers. (Also usenet newsgroups)
The newsgroup "news.announce.newgroups" covers calls for votes and
charters of new usenet newsgroups. The NEW-LIST LISTSERV covers
announcements of new mailing lists and has a list search service.
A WAIS server running at wais.cic.net has the following directories
on line in a single merged source for searching:
the SRI "interest groups" document
a Dartmouth collection of mailing lists
the Kent State list of academic mailing lists
Gene Spafford's list of Usenet newsgroups
- - Public software archies and rosters
The usenet newsgroups "comp.archives" and "comp.archives.admin" track
current developments & new software releases across a wide range of
interests.
The NETLIB and STATLIB indexes are not searchable with WAIS (not yet
at least).
The UUNET directories can be searched with "archie" (see below) or
with the "uunet.src" server running on wais.cic.net.
The NASA COSMIC archive is searchable via WAIS.
The "archie" server is running at a number of sites around the US,
Canada, Australia, and Europe. Archie searches can also be done
from the "gopher" on-line service.
A complete archive of comp.archives is searchable via a WAIS server
running on talon.ucs.orst.edu (Oregon State) and also at the
University of Western Australia.
- - Scientific database documentation
A full set of on-line biology databases are searchable with WAIS.
The archives of the biosci.* newsgroups are available at genbank.bio.net.
Rob Harper at FUNET (Finland) keeps a set of "bionet" WAIS databases
which include LiMB (Listing of Molecular Biology Databases), enzyme
databases, and others.
- - Telecommunications networks.
Several WAIS databases at wais.cic.net provide ready access to
a collection of e-mail addresses from Usenet (usenet-addresses)
the BITNET / NETNORTH / EARN node list (bitearn.nodes)
the UUCP mapping project maps (uumap)
Internet domain names and site contacts (domain-contacts)
- - Internet resource guides
The most effective on-line resource guides help automate the process
of connecting to a remote on-line service or earching a remote database.
The most promising development in this effort is the "gopher" system
developed at the U of Minnesota (telnet to gopher.micro.umn.edu, login
"gopher", or get clients from boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher/*).
Gopher has been used to produce campus-wide information systems,
searchable full-text archives, and gateways to other on-line telnet'able
resources.
- - Usenet newsgroups
The best information about usenet newsgroups is carried in the
"news.annouce.newgroups" newsgroup, which has detailed charters
of proposed newsgroups. The "news.answers" newsgroup has a collection
of periodic information postings which answer frequesntly asked
questions. Search the "mailing-lists" WAIS server for some info,
though not as complete as would be hoped.
An archive at
pit-manager.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/
keeps the information postings on-line, and the "usenet" WAIS server
at pit-manager.mit.edu lets you search through tme.
- ------
To be effective, an internet browser has to be able to take advantage
of remote disk and searching resources. The size of some of the
on-line directories and the frequency of their updates means that any
browser that has to work from the full text of the original data
is going to be prohibitively costly to keep up to date on a low
speed (9.6 to 56 kb) connection. In contrast, the division of labor
between client and server provided by both WAIS and gopher (and by other
systems like World Wide Web that can make use of WAIS and gopher
servers) means that even on a slow rotten connect you can still
search through multiple large databases in relatively little time.
- ------
For further reading:
- - the WAIS bibliography on think.com:/wais/
- - gopher inforamtion from boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher/
- - the CICnet Network Information Resources Committee working
documents on nic.cic.net:/pub/nircomm/
- ------
Some of the databases mentioned above are best categoreid
as experimental and as such are not as pretty, consistent, or
up to date as you might hope (caveat emptor). On-line access via
gopher does not currently cover all of these resources.
Contents may have settled during shipping.
- --
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com
MSEN Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI 48103 +1 313 741 1120
"Things are glued together with spit and bailing wire now."
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