Surfing the Internet | Page 6

"Please address comments to: [email protected]"

Is this the new world order of automated librarianship?


WAIS

Wide Area Information Servers (pronounced ways) allows users to
get information from a variety of hosts by means of a "client".
The user tells the client, in plain English, what to look for
out in dataspace. The client then searches various WAIS servers
around the globe. The user tells the client how relevant each hit is,
and the client can be sent out on the same quest again and again to
find new documents. Client software is available for many different
types of computers.

WAIStation is an easy to use Macintosh implementation of a WAIS client.
It can be downloaded from think.com as well as a self-running MediaTracks
demo of WAIStation in action. Kahle also moderates a thoughtful WAIS
newsletter and discussion group, often speculating about the future of
libraries and librarians.

Info from: Brewster Kahle, Project Leader
Wide Area Information Servers
Thinking Machines Corporation
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
415/329-9300 x228
[email protected]


WorldWideWeb

Tim Berners-Lee describes the Web this way: "The WWW project merges
the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but
powerful global information system. The WWW world consists of documents,
and links. Indexes are special documents which, rather than being read,
may be searched. The result of such a search is another (`virtual')
document containing links to the documents found. The Web contains
documents in many formats. Those documents which are hypertext,
(real or virtual) contain links to other documents, or places
within documents. All documents, whether real, virtual or indexes, look
similar to the reader and are contained within the same addressing scheme.
To follow a link, a reader clicks with a mouse (or types in a number if
he or she has no mouse). To search and index, a reader gives keywords
(or other search criteria). These are the only operations necessary to
access the entire world of data."

Info from: Tim Berners-Lee
WorldWideWeb project
CERN
1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
Tel: +41(22)767 3755 FAX:+41(22)767 7155
email:[email protected]

Hytelnet

Peter Scott, the creator of HYTELNET, sends this recent update:
"HYTELNET version 6.3, the utility which gives an IBM-PC user instant-
access to all Internetaccessible library catalogs, FREE-NETS, CWISs,
BBSs, Gophers, WAIS, etc. is now available. You can get it via anonymous
ftp from: access.usask.ca in the pub/hytelnet/pc subdirectory. It is
listed as HYTELN63.ZIP."

"Version 6.3 is a major upgrade. Much redundant information has been
deleted, and errors have been corrected. New subdirectories have been
added, which has meant that many files now have a more meaningful home.
Also all the new/updated files created since Version 6.2 were incorporated."

"Note: the UNZIPPED files total over 1.2 mb but remember, you can always
edit out any information you do not need, in order to save space.
Information from Roy Tennant follows, slightly edited, describing how to
obtain HYTELNET 6.3 from the ftp site (thanks Roy)::"

"TO RETRIEVE HYTELNET:
At your system prompt, enter:
ftp access.usask.ca or ftp 128.233.3.1
When you receive the Name prompt, enter: anonymous
When you receive the password prompt, enter: your Internet address.
When you are at the ftp> prompt, enter: binary
At the next ftp> prompt, enter: cd pub/hytelnet/pc
Then enter: get hyteln63.zip

After the transfer has occurred, either proceed with the instructions
below to retrieve the UNZIP utility (which you need unless you already
have it) or enter: quit

The Hytelnet program is archived