Billy Barron, Systems Manager at the University of North Texas, produces a directory as an aid to his user community. It complements the St. George guide by providing a standard format for all systems which lists the Internet address, login instructions, the system vendor, and logoff information. The arrangement is alphabetic by organization name. It's available for FTP on vaxb.acs.unt.edu in the subdirectory library as the file libraries.txt.
For announcements of new libraries being available and discussion on related topics, consult the Usenet newsgroup comp.internet.library (Usenet News to learn how to read news).
Bulletin Board Systems
The Cleveland Freenet
Freenets are open-access, free, community computer systems. One such system is the Cleveland Freenet, sponsored by CWRU (Case Western Reserve University). Anyone and everyone is welcome to join and take part in the exciting project—-that of a National Telecomputing Public Network, where everyone benefits. There's no charge for the registration process and no charge to use the system.
To register, telnet to any one of
freenet-in-a.cwru.edu freenet-in-b.cwru.edu freenet-in-c.cwru.edu
After you're connected, choose the entry on the menu that signifies you're a guest user. Another menu will follow; select Apply for an account, and you'll be well on your way to being a FreeNet member.
You will need to fill out a form and send it to them through the Postal Service—-your login id and password will be created in a few days. At that point you're free to use the system as you wish. They provide multi-user chat, email, Usenet news, and a variety of other things to keep you occupied for hours on end.
Directories