(mainly ones made available by Project Gutenberg or the Online
Book Initiative), then whatever book you want to look at. Hytelnet
will log you on to a site that has got that particular book
available to be read on screen.
>From the initial menu screen, select "Library Catalogs". You
can then steer your way through the subsequent screens to any
location that Hytelnet makes available.
2. Some Examples of Using NISS and WAIS
>From the prompt on your mainframe computer, type telnet
niss.ac.uk (or call NISS from a PAD prompt).
2.1. Use of NISS is reasonably self-explanatory. From any of
the menus, type the letter for the option you require (don't
press Return). You will sometimes then be offered at least one
more menu, where the same principle applies.
Of the choices available, the following are particularly
useful:
R) Library Catalogues. This allows access to the JANET UK
University Library catalogues. Before using one, note the
procedure for logging in (you will often have to provide a
password, which you will be told on the screen), and for
logging out (so that you can return to NISS).
T) Bibliographic Services. This allows access to several
services, most notably two of the major U.S. American academic
library consortia, CARL (Colorado based) and MELVYL
(University of Cailfornia). It also offers access to BUBL (The
Bulletin Board for Libraries), which offers much general
information.
BUBL uses a gopher menu system, and can be searched both on
keywords and section by section. Other useful bulletin boards
are the NISS Bulletin Board (which is option A on the first
NISS screen, and contains news of computer developments in
Universities), and HUMBUL (see above). All of these bulletin
boards are continually updated.
To use BUBL, type T from the main NISS screen. Once on the
ensuing screen, choose W. Once you have the BUBL Main Menu,
type the letter that is against the option you want and press
Return. You will be offered further menus, where you can
follow the same principles.
Choose option 2, to search section by section, then try the
following:
1. Choose option 3, D for directories. From the ensuing menu,
choose option 10, D09, Electronic Conferences. Then choose
option 4, D09E. You will get a list of discussion groups for
subjects areas Linguistics through to Psychology.
You can browse through the sequence by pressing the space bar,
or do a rather basic word search. Type /milton; the system
will find details of a discussion group on that poet.
When you have finished, type q for quit, then, when the
instructions at the bottom of the screen tell you to, press
Return to go back to the previous menu, then U until you
return to the menu entitled BUBL Section B, C, D [...etc].
2. Choose option 1, B, for Information Networking, then BH
(option 9), then BH1 (option 1), then BH1B (option 2). You
will see an excellent list of useful sources of information on
the Internet, with details of how to get through to them by
ftp, telnet, etc.
You can either browse this to the end, or arrest the process
by pressing q. Whichever you do, you will be presented (on a
line at the bottom of the screen), with the option of having
the section that you were reading e-mailed to you. Type m,
then, when prompted, your e-mail address (use the same form as
you were given when you registered for your local computer,
e.g. xyz6@sussex.central),. Try it with this section; it's
very useful.
3. Choose option 9, S, for Electronic Journals and Texts. Then
choose option 7, SB, then option 21, SBB, the Oxford Text
Archive, then option 3, SBB2. This will give you access to the
catalogue of the Oxford Text Archive. Browse in the same way
mentioned above; try typing /hardy to find what texts of his
are available in electronic form.
2.2. WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) services allow to
search large groups of files for appearance of individual
words. Three such services are available over NISS:
NISSWAIS - this contains the BUBL and NISS bulletin boards.
Option C from the main NISS menu.
The WAIS Experimental Service - this contains additional
services, such as the texts of Shakespeare, Dickens' Christmas
books, and a seemingly rather selective version of the
catalogue of the Oxford Text Archive. Accessible by Z1 from
the main NISS menu screen (although this isn't currently
indicated).
WAIS - a U.S. based implementation that allow us to search the
contents of the files stored on Internet linked computers all
over the world. Accessed by U) Directory Services, then option
D from the following menu.
WAIS services can also be accessed on various Gophers.
Try the following:
Type Z1 from the main NISS menu. You will be provided with the
first page of a list of the "sources" (i.e. the databases)
accessible this way.
Using the down arrow key on your computer, move to "option 12,
OTA" Press the space bar; this will put an arrow against the
option, indicating that you have selected it for searching on.
Type w (for words to search on). Type the name of any author
you are interested in (either just the surname, or, if you
want to search by typing in a phrase, put inverted commas
round it, e.g. "Jonson, Ben". This version of OTA seems a bit
selective, and you might have some trouble finding a match
with some authors.) Press Return.
You will be shown a list of references that contain the
word(s) you typed. Press the space bar to see the one that is
currently illuminated; use the arrow key if you want to see
another one.
Having seen the references, press x to move back up one
screen. From there, you can either type m to have the
highlighted document sent to you by e-mail (this time, give
your address in the form xyz6@central.sussex.ac.uk), w to do
another search in the same source, or s to review the list of
sources, and change to another one if you want.
3. Examples of File Transfer
(The following examples assume that you have a version of ftp
mounted on your own institution's mainframe. Consult your
Computer Centre to ascertain whether this is so. If it is,
also ascertain whether or not you need to include a path name
before the ftp command.)
You can transfer files from other computers on the Internet to
your own "user area" on your institution's mainframe computer.
You might want to do this because you have heard about a
particular file at a particular site that is of interest to
you, or you might have read that a particular site has files
especially relevant to your subject area and want to see what
it's got. Once the file you want is on the local computer, you
can, if you wish, transfer it to your own PC.
Let us transfer a file from each of two major sources for
electronic texts on the Internet - Project Gutenberg and the
Online Book Initiative.
3.1. Project Gutenberg
Log onto your institution's computer.
At the prompt, type ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu. (If there's any
problem about connecting, you can try contacting one of the
many other places that hold Gutenberg texts - see above)
When the prompt changes to ftp, you will be asked for a login
name. Type anonymous.
You will be asked for a password. Type your username for your
local machine in the "Internet" form, as in the following
example:
If your username is xyz6@sussex.central, then type
xyz6@central.sussex.ac.uk. (As is usual with passwords, this
won't appear on the screen.)
A few lines of screen message will indicate that you have
successfully logged on. You are now in contact with a "file
server" (i.e. a computer storing files that can be copied to
other computers) based, in this case, at Illinois, and are
ready to start transferring.
Some useful commands are available here to guide you around
the file server. If you type get README |more, you will get
some messages about what is available; if you type ls -al
|more you will get a list of the available files and
directories. (Whenever you use |more, the display will pause
at the end of each screen. To see the next screen, tap the
spacebar.)
If you type ls -al |more, you will notice that the word
gutenberg appears on the list. This is a directory, (indicated
by a d at the beginning of the line), which is to say a sort
of electronic folder containing other files and directories.
Type cd gutenberg. Cd stands for "change directory", and moves
you into this directory. (Typing cd pub/etext/gutenberg will
produce the same results.)
Type get 0INDEX.GUT |more, for a list of the Gutenberg files
available.
Type cd etext92 to get into the directory etext92.
Type ls -al |more to see what is in there. Typing get INDEX
|more will give you some information as to what some of these
filenames actually mean!
Let us transfer a copy of "Far from the madding crowd" to your
local machine.
Type get crowd13.txt .
After a pause of (hopefully) only about half a minute, a
screen message will indicate that transfer is complete.
Type bye.
You will be disconnected from the Illinois fileserver, and the
local prompt will reappear.
Type ls -al |more, (or whatever directory command your system
uses) to see what you have in your user area. If all has
worked well, crowd13.txt will be there. Type more crowd13.txt
(or your equivalent command to see a file a screenful at a
time) to have a look at it. (When you have seen enough, hold
the Ctrl key down and tap c to stop the display onscreen)
3.2. The Online Book Initiative
Type ftp world.std.com (if there are problems, try one of the
other sites indicated above). Login (with anonymous and your
user name) as indicated above.
Type cd obi.
Type ls -al |more.
As you will see, a vast collection of files and directories is
available, some of relevance to English Literature.
Let us look at a couple more aspects of ftp.
Type cd Joseph.Conrad, then ls -al |more. As you will see, the
text of The Secret Sharer is included in the rather small
collection. Type get secret.sharer.txt |more.
As you will observe, this time the text appears for reading on
the screen rather than being sent to your local computer. This
can be very useful for making sure that any particular file is
really what you want.
Type cd .. to get out of the Conrad directory. Now type cd
Emily.Bronte, then ls -al |more.
The text of Wuthering Heights is there under the name
wuther.Z. The Z indicates that the file has been compressed to
reduce storage space, and needs to be uncompressed after you
have transferred it.
(N.B. Compressed files cannot be read on the screen, either by
the get filename |more command we have just mentioned, or on
your local computer; they must be uncompressed first to be
usable).
Type binary (this is essential; it tells the computer that the
file to be transferred is not a plain text file).
Type get wuther.Z.
After being told that the transfer is successful, type bye.
At the prompt, type ls -al |more. Hopefully, wuther.Z will be
sitting there.
Type uncompress wuther.Z. Once the prompt has returned, type
ls -al |more again. You will notice that the filename has
changed to wuther (if you had enough room in your user area to
allow the expansion). It can now be displayed on the screen by
typing more wuther. (Other abbreviations at the ends of files
to indicate compression or melding of several files into one
are .zip, .tar, .uu and .arc. They all use slightly different
commands to uncompress them, but the principle is the same.
Consult your local Computer Centre for further guidance.)
4. Some Examples of using Gopher
(The following examples assume that you have a version of
gopher mounted on your own institution's mainframe. Consult
your Computer Centre to ascertain whether this is so. If it
is, also find out whether or not you need to include a path
name before the gopher command.)
Log onto your institution's mainframe.
Type gopher (preceded by any pathname that might be
necessary).
As you will see, gopher works by offering you a menu. Use the
up and down arrow keys on your computer to move the arrow
symbol on the left of the screen to whatever options you want,
then press Return.
Do not worry if your gopher is in its early stages, and only
points to a few places;.once in contact with some of these
places, we can use their gophers to explore much farther
afield! You can either steer through the menus of your own
gopher, or you can access other gophers directly. Because
there will be variations between the screens offered by
different local gophers, all the examples below tell you to
how to get to places further afield directly.
We have cited option numbers appearing on various screens in
the examples below. These are as they are AT THE TIME OF
WRITING, and may well have changed by the time you come to do
this.
(Helpful Hints when using Gophers.
(a) When looking at a text file, instructions appear on the
bottom of the screen telling you to press space bar to
continue to read it, or q to quit. If you press q, you are
given instructions on how to get hold of that file. You can
use either the save or mail options; the first carries it
directly into your main user area on your local machine, the
second sends it to you as a mail message. This is how gopher
automates the ftp routine.
(b) If you get to somewhere very useful which you may want to
return to again, you can save yourself from the bother of
moving through the same series of menus (often very many, and
difficult to remember) to get there. When you are where you
will want to return subsequently, type the letter a. This will
create a Bookmark. Next time you use gopher, type v. This will
display a list of previously created bookmarks. Choose the one
you want - and you will be taken straight to the place you
were when you created the bookmark.)
4.1. Basic Use: 1
Type gopher mothra.nts.uci.edu 7000 or gopher peg.cwis.uci.edu
7000 to get to a service called the Virtual Reference Desk.
(This is the pattern to get through to a gopher directly. As
with telnet, ftp, and bulletin board addresses, there are
useful lists of gopher names on BUBL and on Internet sites
that can be accessed by gopher.)
Choose option 1, gopher.welcome, then option 1, PEG, then
option 16, The Virtual Reference Desk. A large list of options
is offered (use the Page Up and Page Down keys to move around
by one screen of these options at a time). Try whichever ones
you like. Any option with a <?> after it will, once you have
selected it, ask you for a word or words that it will look for
in a file or files of text - try this with option 26, Oxford
Thesaurus, or with any of the dictionary options (if you have
mislaid your Concise Oxford Dictionary, here is salvation.)
Several of the options will allow you to link up to library
catalogues, either using Hytelnet or telnet connections. If
you try one of these, you sooner or later receive a warning
that you're about to leave gopher and move onto one of these
systems; take note of what it says about getting back again!
4.2. Basic Use: 2
Type gopher gopher.micro.umn.edu to get to the University of
Minnesota gopher.
The University of Minnesota hosts the original and one of the
most developed gophers. Some options you might like to look at
include 6, Libraries (among the options that then appear 1,
Electronic Books allows you to look at some of the texts made
available by, for example, Project Gutenberg and the Online
Book Initiative, and 4, Library Catalogs allows telnet
connections), 5, Internet File Server (for ftp) and 8, Other
Gopher and Information Servers (allowing you to move onto
other computers and services - see below).
Searches of the sort we have been doing are all very well if
we know of particular locations that we want to go to. If we
want to find out the locations where material relevant to a
particular subject might be available, there are two useful
services provided by some gophers.
4.3. Subject Searches : 1, Veronica
Veronica is a program that looks for a word or words,
specified by you, on the menus of gophers everywhere
(N.B. Veronica searches word in menu lines not word in files.
As we have seen, you can do this with some choices on some
gopher menus for individual files or groups of files - but, if
you want to search for words in files Internet wide, you need
a WAIS service. You can get onto WAIS services from several
gopher menus, and also from NISS.)
Several Gopher sites implement Veronica. If you are still at
Minnesota, use the option 8, Other Gopher and Information
Servers, then option 2, Search titles in Gopherspace using
Veronica, and then choose one of the variants offered (the UNR
option is a good one). Alternatively, get to the Virtual
Reference Desk (see above), or to the Bath gopher (gopher
bubl.bath.ac.uk or ukoln.bath.ac.uk) then choose the
appropriate option there .
You will be asked to provide some words to search for. Try
anything that you would find useful, and that might appear in
a gopher menu - for example electronic and text. A menu will
be created of gopher items that contain these words.
N.B. Veronica can sometimes be a bit unreliable, possibly
because it accesses so many places, thus increasing its
chances of trying to get through to a computer that is out of
action. All you can do is to try implementations at different
places, and come back later if nothing works.
4.4. Subject Searches : 2, Subject Guides
>From your local machine prompt, type gopher yaleinfo.yale.edu.
When Yale's initial menu appears, choose option 2 Information
Organization Attempts - by Subject. You will get a list of
places which provide some form of subject access (don't
forget, this will not just provide subject access to their own
collections, but Internet wide). A very good one is option 11,
Information by Subject Area - at Rice University.
Once at Rice, use the Page Down key to move on from the first
screen, and choose option 22, Literature, electronic books,
journals. As you will see, the by now familiar mix of bits of
libraries' catalogues, links to telnet facilites and friendly
ways of doing ftp are there. Try option 87, OTA (i.e.
theOxford Text Archive); once there, you can choose option 2,
ftp, then option 3, English on the next screen, and whatever
options you like after that. (Note that, since the system
displays text before giving you the option of getting hold of
it, that this might take rather a long time; we'll do a
shorter file transfer exercise a bit later.) Option 88 gives
you access to a poetry collection, as do some of the earlier
options.
You can, of course, get directly to the Gopher at Rice, or
anywhere else, without going via Yale first. Gopher
chico.rice.edu or Gopher Riceinfo.rice.edu gets you to Rice,
and gopher sunic.sunet.se gets you to a Swedish based gopher
that provides subject access.
4.5. Transferring a File using Gopher
Get to the Washington D.C., University of Georgetown. The
easiest way to do this is to type gopher gopher.georgetown.edu
from your local prompt
Choose option 4, Catalogue of Projects in Electronic Text.
>From the next screen, choose option 4,
DIGESTS_DISCIPLINES.DIR.
Choose option 4, LITERATURE.DIR.
Choose option 8, ENGLISH. A very useful description of
electronic text projects will appear on the screen. If you
type q, you are given options for transferring it to your
local machine - see above under Helpful Hints.
The CPET directory is a good example of how one file
collection can be accessed in different ways; see the main
rllubas@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu
School of Library and Information Science
Louisiana State University