ASSOCIATES (vol. 1, no. 3, March 1995) - associates.ucr.edu
THE INTERNET GURU
by
Brad Eden
Librarian Assistant
Houston, TX
beden@life.jsc.nasa.gov
This edition of IG will examine one of the early attempts to
organize information on the Internet (and still one of the most
effective), GOPHER. The name itself emanates from the first major
gopher location, namely the University of Minnesota (home of the
Golden Gophers sports teams).
Gopher is a system that enables users to find files and connect to
other internet locations through a hierarchical group of menus and
submenus. As with listservs (for information on this aspect of the
Internet, see the November issue of ASSOCIATES), one needs to have
a computer's "address."
The best way to access Gopher is through a telnet connection. Here
are some of the better gopher sites that I have found:
Address login Site
marvel.loc.gov marvel Library of Congress
gopher.virginia.edu gwis University of Virginia
gopher.tc.umn.edu gopher University of Minnesota
gopher.unc.edu gopher University of North
Carolina/CH
riceinfo.rice.edu Rice University
yaleinfo.yale.edu Yale University
To move around in gopherspace, one needs to understand the basic
commands for moving through the menus. The arrow keys are the
easiest way to move the cursor, while pressing the RETURN key will
pull up the submenu under whatever number the cursor is on.
Pressing the SPACEBAR moves one from one page to the next.
What is nice about the Gopher system is that if one finds an
article or file of interest, it can be sent to one's e-mail address
for copying. This is done by pressing "m" for mail, where one is
prompted to write in their e-mail address. Pressing RETURN sends
the desired file to that address for downloading or copying. The
Library of Congress gopher is the best example of this option. Try
it: LC has connections to some of the better gopher sites, and
also maintains important files and documents related to
librarianship.
The best way to learn about Gopher in more detail is to ramble
through the Internet course _Let's Go Gopherin'_, found on the LC
gopher. This group of 25 lessons will teach you everything you
wanted and didn't want to know about Gopher. See if you can find
it on the LC gopher by following the menus, then copy the lessons
to your e-mail address for future reading and reference.
Next time we will examine the newest and brightest star on the
Internet, the World Wide Web. Are there any other topics or
questions about the Internet that you would like discussed? Write
me at beden@life.jsc.nasa.gov and we'll see if we can do a future
IG column on your topic. Until next time...