Skeleton Draft NIR Consumer Report

[[e-mail]]

 I now have many of the completed templates, but still not all of them.
 I am nagging the appropriate people.  Thanks to all of you who have
 mailed them in on time.

 The following is a first very rough draft of the skeleton of the NIR
 report.  I have NOT included the completed templates - as I want you
 to comment on the rest of the skeleton.  Please feel free to criticise
 (contructively :-) ) any aspect of this.

 Thanks - Jill



                        A "Consumer Report" 

                                on

         Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups

                        Draft version 1.0

                        26th October 1992


              Produced by the Joint IETF/RARE/CNI

    Networked Information Retrieval - Working Group (NIR-WG)



    Editors:
         Jill Foster              [e-mail]
         George Brett             [e-mail]
         Peter Deutsch            [e-mail]


 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 year and a half we have seen a wide spread
 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 have recently begun
 to focus 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: IETF, 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" and to update it at least two to three times
 a year so that it provides a "snapshot" report on activities in this
 area.


 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
 and subsequently on the email list.

 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, ease of use (from the user's point
 of view), how to make information available using it, documentation,
 demonstration sites, etc.  It was intended that the main part of this
 should have been completed by the main individual responsible for the
 tool.  Sections of the template 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                  [Note: I have not received all of these yet]
      Hyper-G
      Hytelnet
      Netfind
      Prospero
      WAIS
      WHOIS
      World Wide Web
      X.500 

 and the following NIR Groups:     [Note: I have not received all of these yet] 

      CNI             CNI-arch
                      Top node
                      Directory
                      WAIS Support Centre

      IETF            IAFA WG
                      OSI-DS WG
                      NISI WG
                      URL WG
                      URI WG
                      IIIS WG
                      WNILS
                      NIR-WG    joint IETF/RARE WG 

      RARE            ISUS WG   joint NIR task force with IETF

      IRTF            Resource Discovery WG


      SR-NETT Group   Nordic SR-project

      OCLC            USMARC WG


 In addition, Appendix C contains a list of all the relevant email
 lists.



 4.   Updating Information

 Updates on, and additions to the information contained in this report
 are welcomed by the editors.  Send updates using the appropriate
 template (from Appendix A or Appendix B of this report) to:

 Jill Foster    
 Email RFC 822: [e-mail]
 Email X.400:   C=gb; ADMD= ; PRMD=uk.ac; O=newcastle; S=Foster; G=Jill;

 *** Perhaps should say how to get the templates from file server at mcgill?? ***


 5.   Overview of the types of NIR Tool

 [***** This section to be supplied by Peter Deutsch - and will explain
 briefly about the different classifications of NIR tools (indexing
 tools etc) with examples of each.  ***]

  
 6.   NIR Tools          

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 ALEX

 etc             [**** completed template for Alex]
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 archie          [**** completed template for archie ]

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------


 7.   NIR Groups         

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 CNI 

 etc             [**** completed template for CNI]
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 IETF            [**** completed template for IETF ]

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 APPENDIX A
 NIR Tool Template
 <add template here>

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 APPENDIX B
 NIR Group Template
 <add template here>

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 APPENDIX C

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 /* A summary of email lists and newsgroups dealing with    */
 /* problems in resource discovery...                       */
 /*                                                         */
 /* email lists in IAFA format:                             */

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------


 Created-By:             Peter Deutsch 
 Email Address:          [e-mail]
 Last Updated:           July 6, 1992
 Comments:               Please send comments, corrections and
                         additions to the author at the above address.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------


 Mailinglist-Name:       Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet
                         Anonymous FTP Archive working group (IAFA-WG)
                         mailing list

 Address:                [e-mail]

 Administration:         [e-mail]

 Description:            Discussion list for the IAFA Working Group
                         concerning the administration of anonymous FTP
                         archive sites.

 Keywords:               IETF, IAFA, anonymous, FTP, archive, Internet           

 Archive:                The archive for this mailing list is available on
                         "archives.cc.mcgill.ca" via anonymous FTP in the file
                         "pub/mailing-lists/iafa".


 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Mailinglist-Name:       Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) BOF on
                         Network Information Retrieval (NIR)

 Address:                [e-mail]

 Administration:         [e-mail]

 Description:            This mailing list was formed after a BOF session at
                         the San Diego IETF meeting in March, 1992. It is
                         intended to act as a clearing-house for discussions
                         of Network Information retrieval and the active
                         research projects in this field (ef WAIS, WWW,
                         Gopher). It has hosted discussions on Universal
                         Document Identifers, Universal Resource Locators,
                         Unique Resource Serial Numbers, etc. there is
                         considerable overlap between this group and the
                         "ietf-udi" group (see below) and we expect them to
                         eventually merge.

 Keywords:               IETF, URIs, UDIs, URLs, UDLs, resource discovery,
                         Internet, Gopher, WAIS, WWW, X.500

 Archive:                The archive for this mailing list is available on
                         "archives.cc.mcgill.ca" via anonymous FTP in the file
                         "pub/mailing-lists/nir-archive"



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