[225] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Subject Guides to Internet Resources
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon May 11 12:19:28 1992
Date: Mon, 11 May 1992 10:45:32 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: "Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz,
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I think Bill Drew's idea and Kate Ellis's before that are very
good and not unreasonable. Kate's suggestion - why it caused
so much tooth-gnashing I don't know - seemed to focus primarily
on the need for more reasonable tools for getting through all
that stuff out there. Not long ago there was a heated discussion
about why didn't THEY make the Internet easier to use. Maybe
that THEY should be us. She used the example of the IRG mounted
at CARL. Otherwise you have to FTP the thing and then find some
way to search it locally. Much nicer to mounted it as a searchable
file. The Sonoma catalog gateway takes that sort of thing one
step further. There are a number of other files - D. Kovac's
ACADLIST comes quickly to mind - that would make good databases
attached to library catalogs. Then local systems could set up
the Telnet access from the catalog menu. I could see a menu of
Internet tools that would like you to the needed database.
Bill's suggestion is for subject specific Internet guides. This is
classic librarianship, folks! And if you just take the basic
information from the half-dozen directories that you need to check
and weave it together with some boiler-plate text on the Internet,
Telnet, email, listservers and FTP and voila' you've got a publica-
on the resume' by review time. Mount it for FTP access and you
might get reviewed in Current Cites. Does it get any better than
this?
-- Lee Jaffe
p.s. Cross-posted to LIBRARY list.
