NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/bit/listserv/pacsl/3110

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From:         John Franks <[e-mail]>
Subject:      What is an electronic journal? (part 4 of 4)
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----------------------------Original message----------------------------
               What is an electronic journal? (Part 4 of 4)

All this, may, for the short term, give libraries a reason to prefer
the data base or software models described above, because these models
will require the least new computer hardware and expertise. On the
other hand, there are strong countervailing forces. There is a desire, I
think, among librarians to continue their role as archivers.  They are
likely to be willing to acquire the new skills necessary for this
purpose.  This argues for an electronic journal model which permits
librarians this role.  Likewise, current intense budget pressures
should make the subsidized model popular among librarians.

This article is, of course, highly speculative.  The track record of
those who try to predict the course of developments in the use of
computers is rather poor.  Nevertheless, for those of us thinking about
the development of new electronic journals, choices have to be made
now.  It is my hope that is article can clarify the array of
possibilities which lie before us.


                          GLOSSARY
                          --------

anonymous ftp: (see ftp)

client/server software:
Software whose use involves two computers connected on a network -- a
``server'', on which some information physically resides, and a
``client'' which provides a user interface and requests information
from the server.  The advantage of this scheme is that the server needs
no information about the user's interface.  The client and server
communicate via a specially designed protocol.  Thus a single server
can communicate with users of many very different kinds of computers
without knowing anything about the screen or terminal characteristics
of those computers.  It is the responsibility of the client (running on
the user's computer) to know about the display characteristics of the
user's interface and to supply the information in a way compatible with
them.  See {\it gopher} for an example.

floating license:
A client/server mechanism for licensing software for use on computers
on a network.  If N licenses are purchased for use on a network with
many more than N computers, the first N client computers who want to
use it are permitted to do so.  Subsequent requests are denied until
fewer than N copies of the software are in use.  This has the advantage
of making it possible to use the software on a very large number of
computers (though not simultaneously) while purchasing a much smaller
number of licenses.

ftp:
File transfer protocol.  A standard protocol for transferring files
between computers on the internet.  Normally, it requires the user to
have an account on both computers.  However, it provides a mechanism
called {\it anonymous ftp} which allows the owner of a file on one
computer to make it freely available for copying by anyone on the
network.  Most ftp clients have no capability of viewing or browsing
the files they transfer.

gopher:
The most widely used electronic information delivery system (not
counting USENET which is really a conferencing system) is called
Gopher.  Initial development on gopher was done at the University of
Minnesota (whence its name), but important parts have been developed at
Illinois, Indiana, Rice, Stanford, Utah, and elsewhere.  Gopher is a
client/server based distributed information delivery system.  (see {\it
client/server}).  At present there are gopher clients for the Apple
Macintosh, IBM PC, IBM mainframe (CMS), NeXT, Dec VMS, Unix (curses),
and X-Windows (including Sun Openwindows).  All the client and server
software is freely available without cost.  A unique feature of this
software is the ability to make links from one server to another so it
appears to the user that the contents of the second server is a subset
of the hierarchy of the first.  Currently the NSF and NIH run gopher
servers as one means of online access to their public documents.
Several hundred colleges and universities use this software as the
basis of campus wide information servers.

NNTP:
Network News Transfer Protocol -- the protocol used for transferring
text on the USENET conferencing system.  It has facilities for
transmitting text documents between servers and between servers and
clients.  (see USENET)

USENET:
This is a large conferencing system with a distributed data base which
exists on literally thousands of ``servers'' world wide. It contains
``articles'' in various ``groups'' organized by subject.  There are
currently in excess of 2,500 groups.  Articles are kept only for a
short time (typically 2 weeks) and then discarded, thought some groups
are archived.  The collection of articles present on a server at any
one time can easily exceed a gigabyte (= 1,000 megabytes) of disk
space.  Groups can be ``moderated'', in which case articles are
submitted to an editor who accepts or rejects them for inclusion, or
``unmoderated'' in which case anyone can ``post'' an article to the
group.  This would be an appropriate mechanism to distribute a
newsletter, and is used to distribute the newsletter of the American
Physical Society.  There are a number of client software programs
available for most major platforms.

WAIS:
WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Service.  It consists of a full
text search program utilizing a client/server model.  WAIS is
complementary to Gopher.  It is useful when one wants to do keyword
searches through a very large number of documents and then browse those
documents with the best matches for the search terms.  It also has some
built in capability for auditing in order to charge for access.  It is
based on an older (1988) version of the ISO standard Z39.50 for full
text search and retrieval.

Z39.50:
An International Standards Organization Standard protocol for full text
search and retrieval.  Public domain servers and clients using an older
version of this protocol are currently available (see WAIS).  It is
expected that similar software supporting the latest version of the
standard will soon be available without cost from the Clearing House
for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR) which is
receiving NSF support to develop it..

                    REFERENCES

[1] American Math. Soc.,  Transfer of Copyright Agreement

[2] Richard M. Stallman, The GNU Manifesto,
available by anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu in /pub/gnu/GNUinfo/GNU

[3] EFFector Online, a publication of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, ISSN 1062-9424, available via gopher at gopher.eff.org

[4] Ulam Quarterly announcement on Amer. Math. Soc. gopher
at e-math.ams.org port 70

Copyright 1993 by John Franks.  Permission is granted to reproduce this
article for any purpose provided the source is cited and the author's
name and affiliation are not removed.

End of Part 4 of 4