"The result of a Veronica search is an automatically-generated gopher menu, customized according to the user's keyword specification. Items on this menu may be drawn from many gopher servers. These are functional gopher items, immediately accessible via the gopher client just double- click to open directories, read files, or perform other searches — across hundreds of gopher servers. You need never know which server is actually involved in filling your request for information. Items that are appear particularly interesting can be saved in the user's bookmark list."
"Notice that these are NOT full-text searches of data at gopher-server sites, just as Archie does not index the contents of ftp sites, but only the names of files at those sites. Veronica indexes the TITLES on all levels of the menus, for most gopher sites in the Internet. 258 gophers are indexed by Veronica on Nov. 17, 1992; we have discovered over 500 servers and will index the full set in the near future. We hope that Veronica will encourage gopher administrators to use very descriptive titles on their menus."
"To try Veronica, select it from the `Other Gophers' menu on Minnesota's
gopher server (consultant.micro.umn.edu), or point your gopher at:
Name=Veronica (search menu items in most of GopherSpace)
Type=1
Port=70
Path=1/Veronica Host=futique.scs.unr.edu"
"Veronica is an experimental service, developed by Steve Foster and Fred Barrie at University of Nevada. As we expect that the load will soon outgrow our hardware, we will distribute the Veronica service across other sites in the near future."
"Please address comments to: gophadm@futique.scs.unr.edu"
Is this the new world order of automated librarianship?
WAIS
Wide Area Information Servers (pronounced ways) allows users to get information from a variety of hosts by means of a "client". The user tells the client, in plain English, what to look for out in dataspace. The client then searches various WAIS servers around the globe. The user tells the client how relevant each hit is, and the client can be sent out on the same quest again and again to find new documents. Client software is available for many different types of computers.
WAIStation is an easy to use Macintosh implementation of a WAIS client. It can be downloaded from think.com as well as a self-running MediaTracks demo of WAIStation in action. Kahle also moderates a thoughtful WAIS newsletter and discussion group, often speculating about the future of libraries and librarians.
Info from: Brewster Kahle, Project Leader Wide Area Information Servers Thinking Machines Corporation 1010 El Camino Real Menlo Park, CA 94025 415/329-9300 x228 brewster@Think.COM