Explains aspects of an Internet gopher developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Standard Reference Data (SRD) program. The gopher lists SRD projects and data centers and enables users to find and contact the researchers associated with these projects. Delivery of scientific information is also discussed. (LRW)

Discusses limitations in the development of health care information systems; explains component methodology for complex software development, including component interface semantics; and describes Arachne, a development environment available via the Internet consisting of a set of tools that enables applications to be constructed through…

This case study of how the museum community is trying to select standards for data interchange between museum systems reviews the work of the Museum Computer Network's committee on the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) and reflects on the issues confronting CIMI as it tries to exploit information technology standards as a strategy.…

Considers issues regarding the migration of a system of literature into electronic formats. Highlights include integrity in an information distribution system; digest technology; tracings that permit detection of copied digital objects; verifying sources; digital signature technology and cryptography; electronic publishing; and intellectual…

Describes the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) experimental Sourcerer project which is developing software to accept a user query, automatically identifying appropriate information resources, and facilitating connection to those sources for information retrieval. Discusses the use of the World Wide Web and the Unified Medical Language System.…

Discusses the variety of performance measures available for information retrieval systems, search engines, and network filtering agents. Considers how measures of performance at a point in a search can be formally compared, develops criteria related to document orderings, and discusses equivalent ordering and precision and recall. (Author/LRW)

USENET newsgroup topics are created, and they evolve, mutate, and become extinct in ways fundamentally different from spoken dialog. These differences can be explained partially by the asynchronous nature of electronic communication, as well as by other factors unique to such wide-scale multi-user media. (Author)

Describes the development of a model for future national and international digital libraries. Four aspects of the model are presented: (1) nine principles underlying constructing electronic archives; (2) a study of potential user needs; (3) the design and evaluation of the user interface; and (4) objects and document type definition development.…

Reviews the current state of the Internet as a data transport system and some of its emerging problems. Discusses two major research initiatives--Internet 2 and Next Generation Internet (NGI)--and network-level services that may see deployment in these new research testbeds. Concludes with speculations about future changes to the Internet as a…

Describes the organization, operation, and evaluation of an experimental online electronic conference for 450 chemistry educators from 33 countries that was conducted on the Internet. Advantages and disadvantages of online conferencing compared to traditional methods of scholarly discourse are discussed, and future plans are described. (Author/LRW)

Describes CHMINF-L (Chemical Information Sources Discussion List), including the history of its development on the Internet, its place in today's chemical information environment, and its possible future developments. Typical postings are described, subscription information is included, and listserv features and the future of listserv and similar…

Both a classification of the relatively new standards-setting consortia and a theoretical basis for their emergence are developed. It is noted that the theory is based on the confluence of political theory and the theory of markets, and the implications of these consortia for the standards-setting process are considered from theoretical and…

Noting that standards are needed to enable libraries using different processors and different operating systems to connect their computers and share services in meaningful ways, this article examines the content and status of ANSI Z39.50: Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol Specification for Library Applications and related work.…

Discusses four major trends that have been encouraging the transition to a global digital library: (1) economics of the Internet, including inflation, multimedia, collaboration, timeliness, and scholarly communication; (2) improved service; (3) new digital library technologies, including network technology, data compression, full-text indexing,…

Provides an historical overview of the issues and opportunities presented by distance education throughout the world and discusses future possibilities such as digital and networked technologies, the increased use of homes as learning sites and of computers rather than printed materials, and the economic impact and costs of distance education.…