rfc1689.txt

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Network Working Group                                  J. Foster, Editor
Request for Comments: 1689             University of Newcastle upon Tyne
RARE Technical Report: 13                                    August 1994
FYI: 25
Category: Informational


                            A Status Report
                                   on
           Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups


     Produced as a collaborative effort by the Joint IETF/RARE/CNI
        Networked Information Retrieval - Working Group (NIR-WG)

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness of Networked
   Information Retrieval by bringing together in one place information
   about the various networked information retrieval tools, their
   developers, interested organisations, and other activities that
   relate to the production, dissemination, and support of NIR tools.
   NIR Tools covered include Archie, WAIS, gopher and World Wide Web.

Table of Contents

    1.   Introduction ..............................................   2
    2.   How the information was collected .........................   3
    3.   What is covered? ..........................................   3
    4.   Updating information ......................................   5
    5.   Overview of the types of NIR Tool .........................   5
    6.   NIR Tools .................................................   9
    7.   NIR Groups ................................................ 123
    8.   Security Considerations ................................... 180
    9.   Acknowledgements .......................................... 180
   10.   Author's Address .......................................... 180
   11.   Appendix A: NIR Tool Template ............................. 181
   12.   Appendix B: NIR Group Template ............................ 188
   13.   Appendix C: Email Lists and Newsgroups .................... 192
   14.   Appendix D: Coming Attractions ............................ 207
   15.   Appendix E: Extinct Critters (Tools) ...................... 222
   16.   Appendix F: Extinct Critters (Groups) ..................... 222



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RFC 1689   Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups August 1994


1.   Introduction

   As the network has grown, along with it there has been an increase in
   the number of software tools and applications to navigate the network
   and make use of the many, varied resources which are part of the
   network.  Within the past two and a half years we have seen a
   widespread adoption of tools such as the archie servers, the Wide
   Area Information Servers (WAIS), the Internet gopher, and the
   Worldwide Web (WWW).  In addition to the acceptance of these tools
   there are also diverse efforts to enhance and customise these tools
   to meet the needs of particular network communities.

   There are many organisations and associations that are focusing on
   the proliferating resources and tools for networked information
   retrieval (NIR).  The Networked Information Retrieval Group is a
   cooperative effort of three major players in the field of NIR: The
   Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Association of European
   Research Networks (RARE) and the Coalition for Networked Information
   (CNI), specifically tasked to collect and disseminate information
   about the tools and to discuss and encourage cooperative development
   of current and future tools.

   The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness of NIR by
   bringing together in one place information about the various
   networked information retrieval tools, their developers, interested
   organisations, and other activities that relate to the production,
   dissemination, and support of NIR tools.  The intention is to make
   this a "living document".  It will be held on-line so that each
   section may be updated separately as appropriate.  In addition, it is
   intended that the full document will be updated once a year so that
   it provides a "snapshot" report on activities in this area.

   Whilst the NIR tools in this report are being used on a wide variety
   of information sources including files and databases there remains
   much that is currently not accessible by these means.  On the other
   hand, the majority of the NIR Tools described here are freely
   available to the networked Research and Education community.  Tools
   for accessing specialised datasets are often only available at a
   cost.

   It should be noted that in many ways networked information retrieval
   is in its infancy compared with traditional information retrieval
   systems.  Thesaurus construction, boolean searching and
   classification control are issues which are under discussion for the
   popular NIR Tools but as yet are not in widespread use.  However it
   should be said that, with the vast amount of effort that is currently
   going into the NIR field, rapid progress is being made.  Much work is
   currently being done on expanding some of the NIR tools to include



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RFC 1689   Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups August 1994


   handling of multimedia information services.  Progress has also been
   made in the discussions on classifying and cataloguing electronic
   information resources.

2.  How the information was collected

   The information contained in this report was collected over the
   network from the contacts for each NIR Tool or Group using two
   templates:

     - the NIR Tool Template, included in Appendix A;
     - the NIR Group Template, included in Appendix B.

   The contents of these templates were discussed by the NIR WG in
   Boston (July, 1992) and subsequently on the email list.  (See the
   Section on the NIR-WG for details of how to join this mailing list.)
   The initial draft report was discussed at the NIR Working Group in
   Washington (November, 1992) and updated and added to at subsequent WG
   meetings.  Before the final submission as an RFC the individual
   templates were reviewed by independent reviewers from around the
   world.  Their efforts are acknowledged in Section 9.

   The NIR Tool template was used to collect the information necessary
   to identify and track the development of networked information
   retrieval tools.  This template asked for information such as how and
   where to get the software for each NIR Tool, documentation,
   demonstration sites, etc.  The main part of the template has been
   completed by the main individual responsible for the tool.  Sections
   of the template (e.g., on clients) may have required completion by
   others.

   The NIR Group template requested information on the aim and purpose
   of the group, the current tasks being undertaken, mailing lists,
   document archives, etc.

3.  What is covered?

   In the current report you will find information on the following NIR
   tools:

      Alex
      archie
      gopher
      Hytelnet
      Netfind
      Prospero
      Veronica
      WAIS  (including freeWAIS)



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      WHOIS
      World Wide Web  (including MOSAIC)
      X.500 White Pages

      Appendix D covers "Forthcoming Attractions":
         Hyper-G
         Soft Pages
         WHOIS++

 and the following NIR Groups:

      CNI          Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
                   Architectures and Standards
                   Directories and Resource Information Services
                   TopNode for Networked Information Resources,
                                                  Services and Tools

      CNIDR        Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery
                                                       and Retrieval

      IETF         Integrated Directory Services (IDS)
                   Integration of Internet Information Resources (IIIR)
                   Networked Information Retrieval (NIR)
                      joint IETF/RARE WG
                   Network Information Services Infrastructure (NISI)
                   OSI-Directory Service (OSI-DS)
                   Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)
                   Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS)

      IRTF         Internet Research Task Force Research Group on
                     Resource Discovery and Directory Service (IRTF-RD)

      NISO         Z39.50 Implementors Group

      RARE         Information Services and User Support Working Group
                     (ISUS)

      USMARC/OCLC  USMARC Advisory Group; OCLC Internet Resources
                        Cataloging Experiment (USMARC/OCLC)

   Appendix C contains a list of the relevant email lists and Appendix D
   contains information on "Coming Attractions" which are NIR tools not
   yet in widespread use.








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RFC 1689   Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups August 1994


4.  Updating Information

   Updates on and additions to the information contained in this report
   are welcome. CNIDR have agreed to host the report and to accept
   updates to individual templates from the template maintainers.  Send
   updates using the appropriate template (from Appendix A or Appendix B
   of this report) to:

   [e-mail]

   The current templates and this report may be retrieved from the UK
   Mailbase Server:

   Via anonymous ftp (use your email address as the password):

     URL: ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/nir/files/tool.template
     URL: ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/nir/files/group.template
     URL: ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/nir/files/nir.status.report

   or via gopher or World Wide Web to mailbase.ac.uk

   or via email:

     Mail to:  [e-mail]

  Text of the message:

     send nir tool.template
     send nir group.template
     send nir nir.status.report

5.  Overview of the types of NIR Tools

   The following is an overview of major networked information retrieval
   (NIR) tools available on the Internet.  There are many excellent
   books which discuss the Internet and NIR Tools in detail.  Such books
   include "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog" by Ed Krol and
   published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc and "The Internet Guide for
   New Users" by Daniel Dearn and published by Meckler.

   The number of these NIR tools is large and growing quickly.  Certain
   techniques reappear regularly and seemingly different tools may
   perform similar tasks, allowing a simple classification of projects
   encompassing most of the existing tools and services.







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RFC 1689   Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups August 1994


   The classification presented here is only one possible ordering.  The
   goal is to define in broad outlines what can be done with particular
   tools, realizing that users will always find novel unanticipated ways
   of applying them.

   Interactive Information Delivery Services (Gopher, World Wide Web)

      Basic Internet services such as electronic mail and anonymous FTP
      can be used to share information across the Internet, but neither
      allows simple browsing and neither is particularly easy for the
      newcomer to learn to use.  Gopher and the World Wide Web (W3) are
      two recent developments that attempt to make it easier to
      distribute information over the Internet.  Both allow the user to
      browse information across the network without the necessity of
      logging in or knowing in advance where to look for information.

      The Gopher project was first developed at the University of
      Minnesota to provide a simple campus-wide on-line information
      system.  Gopher represents information as a simple hierarchy of
      menus and files.  It has limited capability to recognize different
      types of files, allowing, for example, the display of selected
      types of image files.  Gateways to other services are provided
      (usually in a manner that is transparent to the user).  The
      underlying Gopher protocol is simple, and has facilitated the
      creation of freely available clients for use on a variety of
      hardware platforms and operating systems.  The more recent Gopher+
      protocol adds the ability to provide documents in alternate forms
      (PDF, PostScript, RTF, Word).  These features and the ease of
      installing and administering gopher servers has led to an
      explosive growth of gopher sites since its initial deployment.  As
      of November 1993, there were over 2200 known servers.

      World Wide Web relies on hypertext; formatted documents are
      displayed, and hypertext links within the document can be selected
      to travel from the current document to another.  W3 allows a user
      to annotate documents (using hypertext links), provides gateways
      to other services, and has multimedia support (for example, on
      appropriate hardware platforms it can intermix text and images in
      a displayed document).  There is a range of free W3 clients,
      supporting many environments.  World Wide Web was originally
      developed at CERN for the High Energy Physics Community.

      Gopher and WWW share a maintenance problem in that there is no
      automated way to update links to other documents when those
      documents are moved or removed.






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RFC 1689   Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups August 1994


   Directory Services (WHOIS, X.500)

      Directory Service tools are intended to provide a lookup service
      for locating information about users (often referred to as White
      Pages), or services and service providers (Yellow Pages).  For
      example, a White Pages service might be used to locate an
      electronic mail address, given a name and organization, while a
      Yellow Pages service could be used to locate an online library
      catalog or file archive site.

      One of the first directory services deployed on the Internet was
      WHOIS, a simple White Pages service created to track key network
      contacts for the early DARPA-sponsored incarnation of the
      Internet.  A number of sites currently operate WHOIS servers,
      based on a range of extensions and enhancements to the original
      model.  WHOIS enjoys the advantages of simplicity and the presence
      of WHOIS client software on a preponderance of Internet-connected
      hosts.  Work is underway on a more powerful protocol, known as
      WHOIS++, which is backwards-compatible with WHOIS.

      The X.500 Directory Service is a much more ambitious Directory
      project that has been under development for a number of years
      under the aegis of ISO/OSI.  Implementations, concerned primarily
      with White pages services, are available in the public domain and
      from commercial sources.  There are LDAP based X.500 clients
      available for most major platforms, as well as a LDAP based gopher
      gateway to X.500.

      Despite years of effort, there is still no single White Pages
      Directory Service for the entire Internet; Yellow Pages services
      remain even less well developed and deployed.  The cost of setting