People live in an era of social, enterprise-oriented, and increasingly cloud-based technology; a dramatic shift away from stand-alone isolated silos that previously dominated. Computing systems can flourish today only when built to easily exchange data and services. An application that stands alone may provide practical functionality but may not…

Cloud computing is definitely a thing now, but it's not new and it's not even novel. Back when people were first learning about the Internet in the 1990s, every diagram that one saw showing how the Internet worked had a big cloud in the middle. That cloud represented the diverse links, routers, gateways, and protocols that passed traffic around in…

In these days of distance learners, virtual libraries, and electronic information, no library can be without some way of providing remote access to affiliated users, whether they are distance students, online students, or local students and faculty members working from home. Libraries subscribe to any number of electronic resources and journals,…

The Web 2.0 tools and services that are making socializing, networking, and communicating in general so easy are also making group projects seriously simple. With the judicious use of a few of the popular tools that use Web 2.0 technologies and philosophies, one can collaboratively create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, websites, project…

Montana State University (MSU) Libraries (where the authors serve as web services librarian and digital initiatives librarian, respectively) is perhaps unique because it has no current periodicals room due to lack of space. As a result, finding current journals for research is difficult for its patrons, who do not always know how or where to…

Introduces the information superhighway (the Internet), and presents a guide to navigating it. Offers basic instruction on obtaining and learning to use network accounts; locating addresses using Archie and Wide Area Information Server; retrieving information using file transfer protocol; utilizing Gopher to find and retrieve; browsing the World…

Illustrates how users can take full advantage of the Internet to communicate and to network. Discusses electronic mailing, listservs and Usenet groups; referring cold connections to a Web page; and designing Web pages for maximum information retrieval by search engines. (AEF)

Provides political background on the National Research and Education Network (NREN). The growth of computer information networks is discussed, including the INTERNET and NSFNET; the legislative process involved with creating the NREN is explained; and the future prospects for a National Information Infrastructure (NII) are discussed. (LRW)

Discussion of software tools for accessing information on the Internet focuses on the WorldWideWeb (WWW) system, which was developed at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN) in Switzerland to build a worldwide network of hypertext links using available networking technology. Its potential for use with multimedia documents is also…

Describes the development of Usenet, the User's Network, a computer network that distributes group discussions (newsgroups) on different topics. Network News software is described, the rapid growth in popularity and heavy network traffic is discussed, and a hierarchical classification scheme to limit the amount of information for users is…

Since its humble beginning, Digital Past, a centralized local history digitization initiative at the North Suburban Library System (NSLS), a multitype consortium in Wheeling, Illinois, has now grown into a large centralized collaboration that consists of 32 libraries and a museum as its primary contributors. With Digital Past, there are various…

This special section presents two articles relating to accessing online systems. The first article discusses power availability for portable computers, including batteries and electrical outlets; the second describes two bulletin board systems that provide information about the Internet and its resources for librarians and patrons. (LRW)

Considers what library outreach means in the age of networked information and suggests that outreach should focus more on libraries and librarians as resources for advice on how to search in general, rather than where to find familiar information. Discusses use of the Internet and search engines. (LRW)

Summarizes issues raised at the 1991 spring conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries/New England Chapter (ACRL/NEC) concerning computer networks and libraries. Highlights include national information policy; library resources and services; developments at the National Agricultural Library (NAL); ILLINET; resource sharing in…

Continues a description of the Usenet computer network that began in the previous issue. The effective use of Usenet is discussed, including how to screen out unwanted information, the most helpful newsgroups to access, and setting up news reader software. Ideas for library outreach services via Usenet are also suggested. (LRW)