Annals of Library Science and Documentation 43, 4; 1996...

Annals of Library Science and Documentation 43, 4; 1996; 121-139.

THE INTERNET: AN APPROACH TO FINDING ANSWERS TO BIOMEDICAL INFORMATION*

Basics of Internet services & resources - it's his-torical development and the applications availabletherein vtz., e-msll, FTP and remote login havebeen briefly described. Mentioning important bio-medical sources, available on Intemet, along withthe journals and their home page sites and alsosome of the issues involved for it's connectivitye.g. financial, technical and organisational, thepaper offers biomedical reference scenario thatillustrates how to search a database and find adocument/information on biomedical subjects onthe Network.

INTRODUCTION

Information Technology (IT) is transforming thenature of information availability and it's manage-ment, thereby altering the traditional responsibili-ties of librarians. Due to developments in tele-communication and networking technologies,today's world is becoming more and more inter-connected. This means that a car phone may beused to dial up a friend halfway around the globe.One of the most exciting manifestations of thisinterconnectedness is the INTERNET. The Internetis a global collection of interconnected netWorks-distinct, local, regional and national, people andcomputers, all linked together, via cables, tele-phone lines and/or satellite lines, all able to com-municate because they share a common language[1, 2, 3, 4).

The Internet is accessible to anyone with a per-sonal computer (PC) and a modem. Internet isquite young and began as a small group of mili-tary research institutions and universities in physi-cally separate places, who needed to share theircomputerised research data timely. To a Internet

SURYA NATH SINGHNational Institute of Virology20 A, Dr. Ambedkar RoadPost Box No. 11Pune 411 001

user(s), these distinct networks appear as a seam-less whole. In the 1980s, the National ScienceFoundation (USA) created a special network, con-necting it's super computing centres, called asNSFNET [5]. The Internet represents a "meta-network" - a network of networks [6]. It providesa way of joining many diverse networks, indudingthose of government, and very recently industry.More recently, universities, biomedical centres,and even patients have become more prominent"publisher" of biomedical information on Internet.Some have chosen to distribute information onspecific field of biomedicine intended to physiciansand the public, where as others have developedresources exdusively for physicians. A quick re-search under the health heading on Yahoo, a lead-ing Web directory, shows 194 sites devoted to al-ternative medicine, 125 to dentistry, 983 to dis-eases and conditions, 1,633 to medicine, 346 tomental health, 389 to pharmacology and manymore.

NEED TO ACCESS THE INTERNET

In addition to the traditional uses of telecommuni-cations for phone conversations and paging, thereis an increasing need for remote communicationto transfer digital biomedical/health information.Physicians might wish to use computer at hometo track the status of patients or receive notifica-tion of important laboratory results. There are atleast six reasons why the user(s) require to ac-cess information centres and libraries (ICLs) fromthe Internet [7] :

i) to get help publishing their information;ii) to get help locating information (on-line ser-

vices and catalogues);

• Based on the papers presented at the National Convention of Medical Library Association of India. Chandigarh, 22-24 December, 1995 and Workshop atthe Documentation Research & Training Centre, Bangalore, 28-30 October, 1996.

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SURYA NATH SINGH

iii) to get help in determining the quality of vari-ous information resources;

iv) document delivery and distribution is anotherarea of traditional ICl services that theInternet technology is changing; and

v) full text documents and information are alsoavailable via Internet. Users can find path tocurrent information about many organizations,including names, addresses, contact informa-tion, lists of reports, and other documents.Users can browse or search these documentsby using tools viz., Gopher, Mosaic, WorldWide Web (WWW), etc. [8]. For example, theNational Institute of Health (N!H) Gopher (go-pher to "Gopher.nih.gov") illustrates thebreadth of information available for physi-cians, scientists, clinicians, nurses, research-ers, and information professionals.

With E-Mail services, individuals can learn abouthealth issues and correspond with others whoshare common interests by joining electronic maillists dedicated to discussions on biomedicalconditions .. Many health care providers now pro-vide educational materials for patients, consum-ers and doctors through World Wide Web (WWW)pages, which are collections of pictures, text,sound and video along with links to related infor-mation on other computers. The Oncolink multi-media (MM) Cancer Resource Web page at theUniversity of Pennsylvania is an example. Fromthis page, computer users can navigate to manyother pages that give them information about can-cer termino!ogy, on-going clinical trials, how toprepare for a hospital visit, and many other top-ics. There is no incremental charges to accesssuch files of other web sites offering biomedicaland health information on the Internet.

THE INTERNET: A Professional Challenge toBiomedical ICLs

The future of biomedical organisation and theirICls is interdependent to digital information. Thechanging nature of digital information has creatednew pressure on ICls, especially in the biomedi-calorganisations. Unless ICls respond effectivelyto this change, their role may be minimised andeven their existence threatened. Recently, the

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concept of resource sharing at local, regional,national and international level to enhance theICl services has become an essential need forvarious reasons. The Internet is very dynamic innature, where resources are being added,Changed, updated or removed daily, even hourly.Therefore, librarians have to impose order ontothe Internet by using it systematically. The Internetprovides access to databases, softwares (indud-ing sound and image files) and documents andserves as a gateway to remote computers. Thereare no manuals, instead these are "frequent askedquestions" (FAQs) and "readme" files. The Internetallows access not only to many standard data-bases, but local databases also, which may beuploaded at anytime without permission [9,10,11].The critical mass of information necessary for ef-fective performance in biomedical' discipline con-tinues to grow in size and complexity. The infor-mation need is not only based on text, but also,unstructured information i.e., databases viz., theGenome Database, image and sound. Severalbiomedical organisations, particularly the researchcommunity, have generated large amount of in-formation that will be available through the Internetand may not be published, according to the com-mon existing standards [12]. These changes haveoccured as the information seeking behaviour ofthe biomedical professionals have become morecomplicated and varied, and have broken the tra-ditionallink between printed work and informationtransfer. Thus, the role of ICls and librarians haveincreased multifold, for new and richer type of in-formation access including multimedia/hypermedia (MM/HM). Thus, the Internet is goingto playa pivotal role in information access for IClsin the coming years.

The MM experience is radically different from textonly option. At least for the immediate future, thereis tremendous need for information specialists tohelp designers of MM based information. For ex-ample, a researcher relies more on the usual im-ages to represent his/her findings. He/she willneed some mechanism to capture the experienceand structure it so that his/her work can be com-municated effectively. This is a function that shouldbe of librarians, because of his/her formal trainingin organizing information as well as long experi-ence in dealing with the information needs of bio-medical professionals [13].

Ann Lib Sci Doc

THE INTERNET: AN APPROACH TO FINDING ANSWERS TO BIOMEDICAL INFORMATION

HOW DOES THE INTERNET WORKS

Like other computer networks, Internet also re-quires the address of destination, electronic me-dia to transmit the signals and some safety fordata communication. The Internet uses a specialcomputer language (a protocol) - TransmissionCommunication Protocol and Internet Protocol(TCPIIP) [14, 15]. The TCP divides the text to becommunicated into little data packets, so that datacould not be lost/damaged during transmission,while IP puts a label with addressing information

Dinic/Researcllinstitute

MicrocompuIU IUdFuU-Co!ourMooiter

e·mailjerver

on this packet. There is a special machine calledRouter to decide the efficient path of journey. WhenTCP/IP packets arrive at their destination, the com-puter removes the IP label, uses the packing listin the packet for the damage, if any, done duringtransmission and reassembles the packets into theoriginal block of text. When the receiving com-puter finds any damaged packet, it asks the send-ing computer to transmit a new copy of bad packet(Fig. 1). It is a gateway, allowing different typesof networks on electronic frontier to talk to theInternet using TCP/IP.

, Mouse Pointer

e-maiitliem

TePllP UStd totransfer messagt

Internet

Fig. 1 E-mailon Internet

Vol 43 No 4 December 1996 I 23

SURYA NATH SINGH

HISTORY OF INTERNET

The Internet was born about 27 years ago out ofan effort called the Advanced Research ProjectAgency Network (ARPANET), to connect U.S. De-fence departments for supporting military research.Users of any of the internetworks can reach userson any of the networks. The internet started withARPANET, but now indudes such networks, asNational Science Foundation Network (NSFNET),New England Academic and Research Network(NEARNET) and others. Many other networks,viz., British Information Technology Network(BITNET) and SPAN are tied to the internet, butare not an integral part of it. The Internet now is aworldwide collection of thousands of computer net-works that can intercommunicate. The ARPANETwhich was made operational in 1969 became anessential tool for remote login, file transfer, E-mailand the sharing of information and resourcesamong researchers, librarians, clinicians and otherinterested groups.

The Internet first became operational in 1983,when ARPANET was splitted into the separatenetworks, Military Network (MILNET) andARPANET which together formed the Internet [16].Each was given a network number, and gatewayswere installed to provide packet forwarding be-

tween them. Nine·years ago, the Internet had afew thousand users. All the users had either readyaccess to experts, or were experts themselves,but now, the number of the Internet users has in-creased a thousand fold and thousands of newusers are being added daily. More than one mil-lion people are using the Internet daily, compris-ing chemists, librarians, information scientists,meteorologists, doctors, scientists, surgeons, spe-cialists, media persons, patients, kindergardenteachers, etc.

Since it's creation in 1983, the Internet has grownexponentially in terms of number of networks con-nected to it. In 1985, the number was approxi-mately one hundred. By 1987, the number hasgrown to two hundred; in 1989, it exceeded fivehundred and in January 1990 it was 2,218 [17,18, 19, 20]. The Internet is often described as theworld's largest network of computer networks. InMay 1994, the Internet Society on InternationalOrganisation, set up to encourage the network,estimated that there were more than thirty thou-sand networks making up the Internet. Some ofthese networks in turn connect thousands of com-puters, spotted around the world. Each year, moreand more countries join the Internet in order toshare it's resources(Tabie 1).

Table 1

S[ no. Year

The Internet growth

Users growth

12345

19831993199419952000

20,000,00040,000,00060,000,00080,000,000

100,000,000 (estimate)

The number of it's users is growing by 12% amonth: about 10 million people in 91 countries nowhave access to the system. The Internet was ini-tially used for electronic mail and now allows "bulk"mailings with over 2500 electronic newsletters and4000 discussion groups. Bulletin Boards supplyinformation of public interest, details of relevantmeetings, and the like [21, 22, 23].

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APPLICATIONS

Although, the Internet has evolved more thantwenty seven years ago, but resources useful tobiomedical users have become available onInternet only recently. Internet has been gearedtoward many tasks. Every year people think ofnew and exciting ways of using the Internet. A

Ann Lib Sci Doc

THE INTERNET: AN APPROACH TO FINDING ANSWERS TO BIOMEDICAL INFORMAnON

recent development involves transmitting live vid-eos and sound to selected locations [24. 25]. Ap-plications can range from home recipes to re-search. library to laboratory. technique to technol-ogy. training to tutorial. tour to transport. homegrown programs to proprietory programs suppliedby a vendor. The Internet provides access to anenormous number of databases distributed aroundthe world and to a variety of scientific facilities in-cluding digitallCLs. unique databases. super com-puters and remote scientific sensing instruments.The Internet collectively offers tremendous poten-tial for collaborating and for sharing resources suchas. documents. software data and network ser-vices [26].

1. Accessing the different databases availablein different laboratories/institutions facilitatesresearch in Interested areas. Students/re-searchers and workers of these institutionsmay use the Internet to exchange E-mail andshare information. A variety of sites are de-voted to biomedical education e.g .• Universityof California at San Francisco Primary CareTeaching Module. HEALTHLINE and otherservers offer multimedia (MM) educationalmaterial advice column. etc. Computer basededucation is rapidly increasing and improvingreading materials. Video and audio could betransmitted across distances at low costs. andinteraction is. possible. Hundreds of schoolsare already networked together for publichealth researchers.

2. Pictures on files at the Library of Congress.National Library of Medicine and other mem-ber ICLs may be looked up. The Visible Hu-man Project documents human anatomy anda series of magnetic resonance, photographicand computerized topography images of crosssections of a human body at one mm. inter-val. Visible Embryo Project is related to im-ages of developmental embryology, while theGE, Three Dimensional Medical Reconstruc-tion page includes animated flying thought ofthe heart arteries. the lung and the brain, andsimulation of a baby delivery.

3. Information and tutorials. to help to do more

Vol 43 No 4 December 1996

things, are available on Internet. It is possibleto track down lists of Internet groups and evenaccess entire books and journals usingInternet. Important journals viz., British Medi-cal journal, CDC AIDS Weekly. Emerging In-fectious Diseases, EMBL, MMWR Weekly Re-port, Nature. New Scientist, Science. etc. are .now available on Internet.

4. Public domain programs for DOS, Windows,Macintosh, UNIX or A~ga computer are avail-able free on Internet.

5. An electronic copy of different documentsavailable on the Internet can be made.

6. Similarly, weather satellite photos of differentcountries atmost an hour old may be avail-able. Various types of information servicesviz., Clinical Information System (CIS). Geo-graphical Information System (GIS) and Me-teorologicallnformation System (MIS) are ac-cessible on Internet.

7. Latest global news via Voice of America, Brit-ish Broadcasting Corporation (BBG) and othernews agencies are also possible. Latest de-velopments in outbreaks of various epidemicdiseases in any part of the world are beingobtained through above agencies on Internet.

8. The Internet lets the people meet around theworld with similar interests or hobbies fromhome, schooling of children to research. Vari-ous scientific groups in biomedicine includingNIH (USA) are meeting on Internet and areaccessible through their home page.

9. The Internet gives access to special job list-ings and career information at the online ca-reer centre. Many universities, professionalassociations and non profit co-operative com-panies make their job listings available onInternet.

The Internet is being used for research, govern-ment and commercial policy and/or decision mak-ing, education, medicine, defence, etc. (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2: How's the Internet used

BIOMEDICAL INFORMATION SOURCES, SITESAND INTERNETAn enormous amount of biomedical information isnow available in electronic form. Until recently,most of these resources were accessible throughdial-up bulletin board systems or, if the file residedon a computer connected to the Internet, througha number of different means of transferring cop-iesof the files from the source computer to a re-mote user's computer. Recently, through WWW,it is possible expeditious retrieval, arrange, anddisplay on web pages the content of the files ratherthan just their name.

Consumer and patient information are also avail-able through Internet. Numerous web pages con-taining specific biomedical infprmation are avail-able viz., Physician'S Guide to the Internet, Inter-active Medical Student Lounge, Nightspale, M PWeb, for physicians, medical students, nurses.Sites such as, the Emergency Medicine and Pri-mary Care Home Page provide resources and

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discussion forum for specialised health disciplinesand reference sites. Some of the biomedicalsources and sites available on Internet are givenin Appendix.

BIOMEDICAL JOURNALS AVAILABLE ONLINETHROUGH INTERNET1840 marked the introduction of the penny postand the first issue of the "Provincial Medical andSurgical Journal". Since then, the journal has de-pendent especially on the postal services for it'sdistribution. But the arrival of Internet has madesome of the important biomedical journals to ap-pear online. It is hoped that the journals' presenceon Internet might help to change the one-to-manycornmunicatlonswith their readers. The electronicmedium allows for much greater interaction thanthe traditional format of the journals and homepages make it easy for readers to send their com-ments back to editors. Some of the important bio-medical journals and their home page addressesare as follows (Table 2):

Ann Lib Sci Doc


Table 2

Important biomedical journals available on Internet

SLno. Name of the journal Internet home page address

1. British Medical Journal(BMJ)CDC AIDS WeeklyEmerging InfectiousDiseasesEMBLImmunology TodayMMWR (Morbidity andMortality Weekly Report)NatureNew ScientistScience

2.3.

4.5.6.

7.8.9.

http://www.bmj.com.bmj/

http://www.cdc.gmlhttp.//www.cdc.gov

http://www.embl.comhttp://www.elsevier.nl/locate .itohttp://www.cdc.gov/

http://www.nature.comhttp://www.newscientist.comhttp://science-mag.aaas.org/science/

The number of biomedical sites joining the Internetincreases monthly, as does the number of infor-mation resources available on it. Biomedical re-search is also taking advantages of web as jour-nals begin to appear on the web in preference toor in advance of print. For example, the Journal ofMedical Imaging is publishing papers on the net.Medical imaging is developing so fast that printmedia are now seen only as the archival form ofknowledge. Most of the journals can be accessedthrough one or many software viz., WWW, Go-PHER, FTP, LlSTSERV, etc. There are more than100 biomedical journals available on Internet andmore than 50 can be accessed only on WWWsites.

Homeopathic Potencies on the INTERNET

"Homeopathic Internet Resources List" is availableon-line on Internet since January 1995. It con-tains information on Internet connection, file, listservers and on-line access to homeopathy as aregular medical list and can be obtained by FTPfrom a distant computer [28].

ACCESS TOOLS (SOFTWARES FOR NAVIGAT-ING THE INTERNET)

The Internet can be accessed in different ways.Software for the Internet access and navigation


permits some conventional searching and brows-ing. These are Telenet, Archie, File TransferProtocol(FTP), GRATEFUL MED, World WideWeb (WWW), Wide Area Information Services(WAIS), Gopher, Mosaic, etc. Some of the re-search, academic and medical institutions in In-dia are connected to Internet [29, 30].

The Telenet

Telenet is the remote protocol of Internet to helpconnect one computer (key board) to another. Thisconnection may be in the same room, on the samecampus, same city, same state, same country orany part of the world. Whatever services the re-mote machine provides to it's local terminals canbe accessed. We can look at library catalogues,we can run normal interactive session and/or manyspecial services [31]. Telenet is a program thatallows our Internet list computer to become a ter-minal of another host computer on the Internet.Anonymous telenet sessions are generally notpermitted, but occassionally user names are cre-ated with restricted privilages for use by theInternet public. With FTP, it is possible only toopen connection to transfer a file, whereas Telenetallows to login as a user on a remote machineand run the Internet computer programs that ma-chine provides.

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SURYA NATH SINGH

The Telenet provides facilities to access hostswhen somebody writes interfaces to help otherusers and to use their interfaces. Similarly, whensomeone creates a useful service, Telenet allowsto access these valuable information resources. Itis extremely simple to use - just type Telenet,followed by the address to be connected with.Once connected with a remote computer, we caninteract with the programs, it makes available viz.GOPHER, WWW, WAIS, ARCHIE, e.g. telnetlibrary.uc.w/u.edu.

E-Mail

E-Mail is one of the most popular usages of the

Internet. Of course, it is necessary to learn howto send and/or receive, read, and to reply mail fromthe Internet account. The Internet allows biomedi-cal professionals to communicate and collaboratemore frequently and quickly than was previouslypossible [32]. There are three organised sourcesof interested group who can exchange mail withInternet viz., BITNET, LlSTSERV and a U,S. basedinternational network (USENET). Developed coun-tries viz., USA, UK, are using above services tokeep uptodate on current events in the field, askquestions to colleagues and offer duplicate jour-nal issues willing to pay postage. Biomedicalagencies with E-Mail numbers and contact per-sons have been given in Table 3.

Table 3

Health agencies with E-Mail numbers and contact persons

SI. no. Name Designation

1. WHO, Geneva HQMr Shumichi Akazawa Network Manager

Mr David Berg Director Info.Technology Office

2. COC (Center for complete list ofDisease Control), COC staff, bitnetAtlanta (USA) address obtainable

3. NIH (NationalInstitute of Health)- BlR Joseph

Manghton

E-Mail address

<[email protected]>

<[email protected]>

HSPNET-@AlBNYOH2fileserver.

@User%node @ CU.NIH.GOV JON @NIHCU

USENET (News Group)

Usenet is Internet based where end users need toknow only how to interact with the particular Usenetprogram on their computers. Use net 'is a U.S.based global network of computers and peoplewho share similar interest to communicate with

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another internet. It helps to know what is Usenetnews? what is a reader? how to get a particularitem of the news required? how to save the news.Thus, Usenet is a system of organised 'newsgroups' sharing many features with traditionalnewsletters, mailing lists and focused scientificsocieties.

Ann Lib Sci Doc


There are discussion groups for topics rangingfrom hobbying to practicals to solve one's prob-lem. Inside each news group, there are, usually,multiple discussions going on under specific sub-jects. As with the most Internet applications, thereare many newsreading programs from which wecan choose our interested articles. It is also pos-sible to set up our news reader to view or discardcertain items automatically based on the author'sname of the article, subject. Reading news, steer-ing a news reader, saving news articles, control-ling what we read, catching up, posting articles(adding to an existing discussions and/or startinga new discussion), supplying e-mail are some ofthe facilities available on news group on theInternet. E-Mail internet allows almost instantly toexchange electronic messages (e-mail) with friendsacross the hall or around the world. The Internetaccount also includes an electronic mail box.

MEDLlB-L

MEDLlB-l serves the above purposes, amongothers, for biomedical librarians. The statistics forMEDLlB-l shows that more librarians are joiningthe electronic community. Although it is locatedin U.S., but subscribers hip is international, withparticipants from more than thirty five countries.

Listservs

listservs also have changed the way of libraryprofessionals in the method of communication.There are many listservs, in the subject interestsof ICl professionals, to keep on their current in-terest from reference questions to copyright.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

One of the primary services of the Internet is filetransfer. One major reason to access the Internetis, that it gives access to all kinds of information.Files and data are scattered all around the Internetin large and small archives. These files may con-tain text, pictures, sound or computer programs.Internet has a standard tool for transfering copies offile to PC's - a program called FTP which allows totransfer a copy of file between two computers. Filesfrom one account can be copied to a distant com-puter and vice versa. (Internet Resources: Internetresource guide, Computing Centres, Data Archives,White pages, Miscellaneous)


Data Archives/Archie

The Internet is a home to a wide variety of dataarchives. It is simple to use Archie throughTELINET, because additional software is not re-quired. Archie allows to search indexes to locatefiles that are available on public services. Likeother services on the Internet, Archie can be ac-cessed in multiple ways i.e., through E-mail,TEll NET, etc. Some of the biomedical servicesavailable are:

* Gene server,* IUBIO archives for molecular and general

biology,* LIMB (listing of molecular biology data-

bases),* Matrix of biological knowledge archive

server, andMBC RR : The molecular biology com-puter research resources.

Archie is a very popular service and is used aroundthe world. It is not unusual for a server to handleover 40 requests simultaneously. There are sev-eral facilities available to avoid collapse due toover use. To protect the responsiveness of the ser-vices, some servers have the limits on the num-ber of concurrent requests that can be handled. Ifa server is tried and hit one of these limits, a mes-sage like:'Due to serious overloading on the archie server,we have been forced to restrict the number of con-current interactive (telenet) session to 10. Con-nection dosed by foreign host' [33] is received.

Gopher

Gopher software has emerged rapidly as a power-ful tool for providing ICl users with organised ac-cess to Internet resources. It is a program that isdesigned to allow browse the resources of theInternet which displays a set of resources as menus.A database can be accessed by selecting one ofthese user friendly menus. Gopher is one of themost popular services on the Internet, making theconnection can sometimes take a while. The bestway to understand Gopher is to use it. If one is aGopher user on the Internet host, one can use itto connect directly to a specific Gopher server bytyping GOPHER followed by the address of servere.g., Fig 3-5 to connect directly to the University ofMinnesota Gopher server.

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SURYA NATH SINGH

Gopher helps us to browse remote libraries cata-logue and automatically sending the material

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which is wanted. It does not really matter wherethe library is located as long as it is a part of theGopher system.

1 Information About Gopher2 Computer Information3 Discussion Group4 Fun & Games5 Internet file server (ftp) sites6 Libraries7 News8 Other Gopher and Information Servers9 Phone Books

10 Search Gopher Titles at the University of Minnesota11 Search lots of places at the University of Minnesota12 University of Minnesota Campus Information

Fig.3 Current Gopher format (main menu) Michigan libraries

1. Genetic Resources2. NIH Information3. Electronic Publications4. Cancer Net5. Biology, FTP Sites6. Biomedical Shareware7. Search of Biologists funded by NIH DOE, NSF

Fig. 4: Life science menu

ULibrary Gopher main menu

University of Michigan Libraries1. About Using the ULibrary Gopher2. Contents of the ULibrary Gopher3. About Univ. Michigan Libraries & Information Resources4. News Services5. General Reference Resources6. Humanities Resources7. Science Resources8. Social Science Resources9. Library Catalogs10. Univ. Michigan Campus Information (Gopher BLUE)11. Other Gophers and Veronica12. What's New and Featured Resources

Fig.5 : Building and maintaining a Library Gopher

Ann Lib Sci Doc


When something interesting is found, this can beread or accessed through Gopher without worry-ing about domain names, IP addresses, chang-ing programs, etc. For example, to access theonline library catalogue at National Library of Medi-cine (USA) or the University of California, ratherthan the address and teleneting to it, we find anentry in a Gopher menu and select it. It lets usbrowse through the Internet resources regardlessof their type just as we might browse through ourlocal library, with books, filmstrips and photographrecords on the same subject, grouped together.Gopher also helps in inter library loan through theonline catalogue if the library permits it. A Go-pher server is like hiring a librarian to find out de-tails of what and where of the required document.If the required material is not found at our genitallibrary, we can search elsewhere; when it is found,the same may be received by inter library loan.With libraries, it can take a while; with Gopher,getting material from somewhere else is instanta-neous. Building and maintaining Gopher is oneway in which librarians' traditional knowledge andskills are being applied in a non-traditional area.

Since the Gopher service is still under develop-ment, the features available are changing, hope-fully for the better. Gopher services will be some-what better everytime. Gopher can be used toaccess other resource finders like Archie, WWWand WAIS. It has versions for various computersand is menu driven software.

World Wide Web (WWW)

The WWW is the newest information service toarrive on the Internet. The feature of WWW isthat it allows rapid acces to web site elsewhere.The WWWwhich is based on HM/MM is a graphi-cal navigational tool that works across the Internetgiving it a more friendly feature. It allows the us-ers to add text, formating, picture, sound, videoand some virtual reality to the information they wishto share with other users [34]. As with Gopher, thesame resource may be available on WWW serverbut it provides valuable browsing, having combi-nation of text, sound, video, etc., i.e., hypertext(HT), MM, HM based information on the Internet[35,36,37,38].

Vol43 No 4 December 1996

"LYNX HELP FILES"The menu on the monitor will display choose a

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University of Kansas CWIS,O'Reilly & Res. Global Network Naviga-tor,Nova link : Internet access made easy,andMCSA: Network starting points. Informa-tion resource meta index.

For the biologists, medical scientists, all the pro-tein databases that have become so central to thepractice of molecular biology are now accessibleon WWW.Asite at NIH provides direct access toGENBANK and BROOKLAVEN Protein database.The Genome database at the Johns Hopkins Uni-versity has a HT WWW interface. For access toNew Scientist, we have to type help:IWWW.newscientist.com. More than 50 biomedical journalsare available on Internet only under WWW inter-face.

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SURYA NATH SINGH

Wide Area Information Server (WAIS)

The WAIS is another service provided by theInternet. It is really a tool for working with collec-tions of data as databases and helpful for search-ing through indexed material and finding articlesbased on what they contain. The WAIS goes afew step further than Archie and FTP by indexingthe content of text files stored on a network. TheWAIS indexes the contents of documents ratherthan document titles. Using WAIS is. more likethumbing through the indexes in the back of books,than like using a card catalogue that lists booktitles only. There are two ways of accessing theWAIS servers i.e. Gopher or WAIS dient. Thereare more than 600 libraries on the network now.

REMOTE LOGIN FACILITIES

Biomedical ICls in developed countries are dis-covering a multitude of uses for the Internet bymastering and exploiting new skills and terminol-ogy through the tools such as, library catalogueor a database, E-Mail, access to remote system(Telenet), Gopher, FTP, WAIS, ARCHIE, WWW,USERNfTNEWS, etc.,

The Internet provides new link to colleagues, ser-vices and information. There are three standardinternet applications, E-mail, file transfer and re-mote login. The Internet also offers a wide rangeof services, bulletin boards, index programme andso on.

THE ISSUES

As the Internet continues to expand, it has becomethe home of information and computer tools,necesary for anyone on the internet to accessthat information.

Financial Issues

Cost is a major issue in establishing a directInternet connection at biomedical ICl in the de-veloping countries like India, where budget crunchis a severe problem. Cost is highly visible to ad-ministrators, especially when applied to a new IT,and even more, when the need for that technol-ogy is not well understood. Because the issuesare complex, any single decision can affect partof the organization. A direct Internet connection

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affects the entire organisation and requires the ad-ministration to be knowledgeable, committed andsupportive. Collaborative relationships amongadministrators and the information & library staff,are essential. In India, dial up access is advis-able as it is low cost, low risk and suitable for anICL. On the other hand, a direct connection in-volves the entire organization and requires highlevel knowledge, commitment and support. Re-cently Videsh Sanchar Nigam, Ltd. (VSNL), lndia,has announced special concessional rates to thestudent researchers and not-far-profit organisationi.e. Rs.15,500 for 500 hours (login time) in dial upmode.

Technical Issues

In India, where the Internet is yet to get momen-tum, the low level of technical expertise availablewithin biomedicallCLs computing environment, isprobably the biggest barrier to overcome in imple-menting a direct Internet connection. Librarianswill have to face a steep learning curve in trying tounderstand the components of the Internet con-nection and related issues. At every turn, issuesof compatibility with one configuration or another,lead into difficulty.

There is also a possibility of telecommunicationrelated problems with the integral service provid-ers during early phase of Internet services. Thelack of technical resources available locally, willoften lead the librarians/information scientists toturn to regional medical libraries (RMLs) or na-tional medical libraries (NMLs) for assistance. TheRML staff will not always have the answer, butthey will like to help and assist. Occasionally, theInternet itself provided the means for acquiringassistance from experts at other location but it can-not take the place of local expertise. To start withthe Internet, there is extensive need to have closeinvolvement of knowledgeable and trained systemengineers.

Organlsatlonallssues

In India, biomedical librarians/information scien-tists have to play the central role in introducingthe Internet, as the resident expert in managingexternal information resources. Dial up Internetaccess does not raise these questions as theorganisational risk is low. But. attempts to estab-

Ann Lib Sci Doc


lish direct Internet connection often do raise thequestion about the biomedical information sys-tems, strategy, structure and accountability. De-cision making authority should not ignore the li-brarians, while recommending the Internet access.The responsibility to access Internet should begiven to librarians as they are fully focussed onexternal information resources in order to fulfil theinformation needs of scientists, clinicians, deci-sion makers and administrators. These profes-sional outlook may lead to the development ofan overview of information management that willserve the needs of the organisation.

INTERNET AND BIOMEDICAL ICLs IN INDIA

In India, awareness amongst the scientists, deci-sion makers, clinicians, etc. about the Internet isincreasing in an alarming rate. NICNET has nowweaved the entire country into one single com-munication, entirely for reaching out to the worldat large without any technical barriers. Findingarticles, and other global information can be ob-tained intendly on Internet through Research andEducational Network of NIC (RENNIC). Most ofthe ICLs accessinq through Internet are directlyor indirectly connected via NICNET, ERNET, INET,C-WEB (Centre for WWW services over NICNET).C-Wane is the first web server in India, to navi-gate through Internet for exchanging MM baseddocuments. Most of the Indian Council of MedicalResearch (ICMR) ICLs are having Internet facilitythrough NICNET. ~oday, it connects governmentinstitutes, universities, research and commercialorganisations and is known as Internet globally.In India, only few biomedical ICLs are having theInternet connection with limited access and uses.Some of the users including physicians and sci-entists who are aware of Internet are using thefacility through NICNET or special facility providedby VSNL on a very concessional rate. Efforts arebeing made to put some Indian popular journals,catalogues of publications - text, audio, visual,slides anddatabases on Internet viz. Science To-day by Vigyan Prasar (DST) - comcom (http://Vigyanprasar.com).

PUNENET and INTERNET Access

Under Pune Library and Information Network(PUNENET), users are allowed to access the in-

Vo143 No 4 December 1996

formation from city ICLs and database currentlyavailable on various topics. The users are alsoallowed to access world wide databases of theirinterest through the Internet. Every user ofPUNENET can now avail the facility of totalInternet access through dial up lines, by connect-ing to the Sun Server. The SUN SPARCS workstation is the main server for the PUNENETproject. This server is situated at the BioinformaticsCentre, Pune. The server can be accessed overthe telephone cables through two modems. Thissystem is ideal as a database server. The operat-ing system is loaded in salaris v2.4. The serveras configured for network connectivity with thePoona University Fibre Optics Network can thusavail full Internet fascilities having class-C Internetaddress IP address (202.41.70.1) and act as mainnode for machines assigned addresses between202.41.70.2 and 202.41.70.255. The configura-tion of Sun Server is as follows:

Hardware

SUN SPARCS, 32 Mb RAM, 535 Mb Inter-nal hard disk (HD), 2 Gb external HD, 150Mb cartrige tape drive, CD-ROM drive, 8Port serial - parallel controller, high resolu-tion colour monitor.

Software

Salaris v2.4 operating system, SPAC worksPro C v3.0, C++ 4.0.1 & Fortran 3.01,SPARC work Common Tools.

The facilities provided to the PUNENET usersthrough the Internet are:

1. The WWW sites can be accessed throughgraphical and character based browsers suchas

*Mosaic Netscape (GUI based)Gopher, Lynx (Character based)

At present"GUI based browsers will work only onSUN machines, However, effort are on for thirdparty software for SLIP and PPP implementation.This will allow the browsers to work over dial uplines on other machines.

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SURYA NATH SINGH

2. Access to databanks available on the Intemetsuch as,

.• Bioline* MSDN (Microbial Strain Data

Network).• MEDLINE.• Dialog (charged)

3. Apart from the above, the user can avail otherInternet facilities like,

* E-Mail.• FTP for accessing data from remote

computers.* Accessing various newsgroups of the

Internet.• Searching data across the network

with search engines like Archie.

The PUNENET can be accessed through MODEMLynx (a text based Browser). Also, a graphicalbrowser, Netscape can be used for accessing. TheLynx also supports the Graphics. For accessingPUNENET through Lynx, type: lynx http://bioinfo.erneUn /punenet and press enter, whenPUNENET menu driven home page will be visiblesupported. by help.

WHO GOVERNS THE lNTERNET

No one person or group runs the Internet. A groupof volunteers called Internet Society of ISOC whodirects this to promote global information exchangethrough internet technology. There is a myth thatthe Internet is free, but it is not so. Some onepays for every connection to the Internet. Simi-larly, no one pays for it, on the contrary everyonepays for their part. Many times these fees are notpassed on to the actual users, which feeds illu-sion of free access. Some sites are supported bygovrnment while others by private grants.

GETTING CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET

To use the Internet, one must have the Intemetconnection. There are several ways of getting con-nected to the Internet. To get access to the Internetvia a service provider, the basic kit required is:

i) Communication (Dial up access, ISDN,satellite. leased line, ordinary telephone);

ii) A computer (PC/AT preferably PC/AT-

134

80386);iii) A modem (9600 bits per second);iv) Password (Membership) address; andv) A software (viz. PROCOM).

To get the complete set of services, a TCP/IP styleconnection is needed but for limited services, thereis no need of a full connection to the Internet i.e.,we can, beg, borrow or buy an account on a com-puter which is connected to the Internet.

DON'Ts (What Is not allowed on Internet)

It may be possible to do what we want, but it isalso our responsibility to find out what is allowedand what is not on Internet. It is influenced bylaw, ethics and policies. Following points shouldbe taken care of while using the Internet:

i) Never forget that the person on the other sideis also a human, one should not hurt the feel-ings of others. Please remember that whenyou are sending a message (stronglycriticising messages on a network) to a bulle-tin board or mailing list, people all over theworld are going to read your words;

ii) Be careful what you say about others;

iii) Think twice before you post your personal in-formation about yourself or others;

iv) Say succinctly, as it will have a greater im-pact. Remember that longer you make yourarticle, the fewer people will read it;

v) Avoid abbreviations and acronyms, if pos-sible;

vi) If your message is very interesting to a lim-ited geographical area (conference, meetings,appointments, etc) restrict the distrtibution ofthe message to your local area; .

vii) Avoid posting messages to more than onegroup unless you are sure, it is appropriate:

viii) When you request information from the net-work, it is common courtesy to report yourfindings that can benefit others as well;

Ann Lib Sci Doc


ix) One of the biggest problems on the Internetis that when someone asks a question, manysend identical answers. When this happens,dozens of the identical answers pour inthrough the net. Mail your answer to the per-sons and suggest that they summarise to thenetwork. This way the network will only seea single copy of answers, no matter how manypeople answer the question; and

x) Be careful about copyright and licences. Post-ing movie, reviews, songs, lyrics and anythingelse published under a copyright could causemembers of the net community to be held li-able for damages.

BIOMEDICAL RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET

There are lots of resou rces on the Internet but thereis no official list. Anyone, who has an Internetconnection, can put a new resource online at anymoment. The Internet is dynamic, some resourcesare always parting out of date and they are al-ways missing the latest and greatest things on thenet. The major resources are: 1. Friends, 2.NetworkneiNs, 3. mailing lists, 4. Gopher, 5.Archie, 6. WAIS, 7. WWw. The special resourcesare: 1. The InterNIC, 2. Registration service (in-formation about remote networks), 3. Databaseservices (White page equivalent to Yellow page),4. Information services (like reference service, fax,E-mail questions). Of particular interest to the bio-medical community is the large and increasingnumber of technical, scientific and biomedical re-sources that can be accessed through the Internet.Most of the bigger biomedical centres have pub-licly accessible information viz., NIH, NML, etc.having extensive databases and services that canbe used by biomedical researchers, clinicians,educationist, decision makers and administrators.In addition, many biomedical organisations andsome biomedical journals are advertising theirservices over the Internet and can be contactedthrough E-Mail. Different type of informationsources available are: consumer and patient in-formation, resources for health professionals,medical images, telemedicine and rural medicine,health policy and government standards, profes-sional organisations and journals.

Many government agencies maintain sites with in-formation for both health care professionals and


health care consumers. The centres for diseasecontrol and prevention and the public health ser-vices maintain internet sites with information aboutcommunicable diseases, epidemics, and popula-tion based health care. WHO maintains web siteswith information on international health issues.Sites such as, Healthwise at Columbia University,the HEALTHLINE server at the University of Mon-tana, and the Healthinfo Gopher at Rice Univer-sity offer multimedia (MM) educational materialsadvice columns, mailing list, and other resourcesaddressing preventive medicine, nutrition, AIDS,sports medicine, drug and alcohol abuse, woman'shealth, sexuality and other public health informa-tion. Bibliographical resources are also availableon the internet.

ROLE OF LIBRARIANS/INFORMATIONPROFFESSIONALS

New IT can vastly improve the storage and re-trieval of information on public health. There aremany forces coming together to provide a forumfor biomedical librarians/information scientists,who are interested/involved in leading informationinitiative in their institutions. There is an urge tohave standards for information management toprovide an outstanding opportunity for biomedicallibrarians/information system staff and biomedi-cal records staff to work tegether to create a seam-less information system for users of biomedicalinformation, viz., physicians, clinicians, nurses,scientists, researchers, decision makers, etc.Communication among these geographically dis-tributed institutions and hospitals is vital. Biomedi-callibrarians/information scientists, can playa vi-tal role in the newly emerging national biomedicalinformation landscape through the wealth of infor-mation capabilities of the Internet [39, 40, 41, 42,43,44]. We should be prepared for these invitablechanges by becoming more familiar with Internetthrough formal and informal training course andInternet library should be incorporated into bio-rnedicaljschools and continuing biomedical cur-ricula.

CONCLUSION

Thus, the Internet is much more than a computernetwork or an information service. It should beclear by now that the Internet is not only a collec-tion of computers and cables but also a global com-

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SURYA NATH SINGH

munity of people who share a wide variety of re-sources. If allows the researchers to Share dataand publications, experiences, opinion and knowl-edge/information and provides a way to create re-sources and share them instantly with millions ofpeople around the world. The Internet in India isstill in initial stage, and it's infrastructure is yet tobe grown to the desirable extent. Computer net-works in general and the Internet in particular arelikely to play vital role in many aspects of biomedi-cine in future. As a health care information pro-viders we must also be the prominent providers ofInternet based biomedical information for both ourcolleagues and the public.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe author is grateful to Dr. Kalyan Banerjee, Di-rector, National Institute of Virology, Pune for hiskind permission to send this article to publish inAnnals of Library Science and Documentation(INSDOC), New Delhi. Author is also thankful toMrs. A. Reethamma, Mr. Dominic Fernandes, andMr S.B. Attar for their secretarial assistance; Mr.S.S. Bedekar, Mr. S.K. Deshpande, for their com-puter and photographic assistance respectively;and the staff of Bioinformatics and C-DAC Punefor providing literatures.

REFERENCES1. BUTTER (Mark) : How to use the Internet,

join the Internet revolution today. 1994. Ziff-Davis Press; California. Chap 1 : 1-8.

2. DOLAMOTHE (Tony). j3MJ on the Internet.Visit our home page at http://www.bmj.com/bmj/. British. Med. Jour. 310; 1995, May 27;1343-44.

3. FL.ANNERY (M R). Cataloguing Internet re-sources. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 83, 2; 1993;211-15

4. HAYES (Brian). The World Wide Web.American Scientist. 82; 1994, Sept - Oct; 416-420.

5. BUTTER (Mark). Op. cit.

6. ERHARDT (D K). The Internet: will this high-way serve the digital library ? Bull. Med. Libr.

136

Assoc. 82, 4; 1994; 426-33.

7. LACOXIN (E M) et a/. Service providers andusers discover the Internet. Bull. Med. Libr.Assoc. 82,4; 1994; 412-418.

8. KAROL (E D). The whole Internet user'sguide and catalogue. 2nd ed. 1994. O'Reilly& Associates, Inc; Sebastopole, C.A.

9. HAYES (Brian). Op. cit.

10. KAROL (E D). Op. cit.

11. NEESHAM (Claire). Network of information.New Scientist (Inside Science No. 77). 1994;19th Dec; 1-4.

12. DOLAMOTHE (Tony). Op. cit.



15. OBRACZKA (Kalia) et a/: Internet resourcediscovery services. Computer. 1993, Sept.;8-22

16. LANE (Elizabeth) and SUMMERHILL(Craig). Internet primer for information pro-fessionals; a basic guide to Internet network-ing technology. 1993; Meckler Corp.;Westport, CT. x, 182p.

17. COLERA (Ehtrico). Medical informatics (re-cent advances). British. Med. Jour. 310; 1995,27 May; 1381-90.


19. KAROL (E D). Op. cit.

20. OBRACZKA (Kalia). Op. cit.

21. LACOXIN (E M) et at: Op. cit.

22. NEESHAM (Claire). Op. cit.

23. PANNERY (M R). Cataloguing internet re-sources: Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 83, 2; 1995.


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25. CalERA (Ehtrico). Op. cit.

26. BUTTER (Mark). Gp.cit.

27. KEHOE (B Pl. Zen and the art of the Internet- a beginner's guide. 2nd ed. 1993. PrenticeHall; Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 112p.

28. VANGAlEN (E). Homeopathic potencies onInternet. Brit. Homeop. J. 85; 1996, Jan.;34-7.

29. MARINE (April) et al. Internet getting started.1993. Englewood Cliffs: N.J.; Prentice Hall1993. 360p.

30. ERHARDT (D K). Op. cit.

36. RAUCH (Steve) et al. Community hospitalsand the internet: lesson from pilot connec-tions. Butl. Med. Libr. Assoc, 82, 4; 1994, Oct.;401-406.

37. SCHATZ (B R) and HARDIN (J B). NCSAMosaic and the World Wide Web, globalhypermedia protocols for the Internet. Sci-ence. 265; 1994, Aug 12; 895-901.

38. SINGH (S N). The Internet: a network of net-works and its role in biomedical informationsystem. MlAI-95, 22-24 Dec. 1995.Chandigarh (India)

39. CalERA (Ehtrico). Gp. cit.

40. FLANNERY (M R). oo. cit.31. FUllER (S S). In,ternet connectivity for hos-

pitals and hospital libraries strategies. Bull. 41. KAROL (E D). Op. cit.Med. Libr. Assoc. 83, 1; 1995, Jan.; 32-36.

42. LAPORTE, (R E). Global public health and32. KAROL (E D). Op. cit. public superhighway tomorrow the world. Brit-

ish. Med. Jour. 1994, June 25; 1651-52.33. POWSNER (S M) and RODNERNER (N K).

Navigating the Internet. Butt. Med. Libr. 43. NEESHAM (Claire). Op. cit.Assoc. 22, 4; 1994; 419-25.

34. HAYES (Brian). Op. cit.

35. POWSNER (S M) and RODERNER (N K).Oo. cit.

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44. OBRACZKA (Kalia) et al. Op. cit.

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APPENDIX

BIOMEDICAL SOURCE'S AND S:TES AVAILABLE ON INTERNET

1. Netscape Communications Corp., <URL: http://home.netscape.coml>. URLs listed in this appendix are accurateas of the date of publication but will change over time. The indices mentioned in the last section of the appendixshould be consulted for updated access information.

2. National Center for Supercomputer Applications, <URL:http://www.ncsa .uiuc.e-du >.3. W3 Consortium, <URL:http://www.w3.org/hypertextlWWW/LynxlStqtus.html>.4. Columbia University Health Service, Health Education and Wellness Program, <URL:http://www.cc.columbia.edul

cu/healthwise/>.5. University of Montana Student Health Services, <URL:http://healthline. umt.edu:700>.6. Rice University Student Health Service, <URL:gopher:/Iriceinfo.rice. edu/11/Safety/Healthinfo >.7. University of Connecticut Health Center, Lyman Maynard Stowe Library, <URL: gopher:/Iinform.uchc.edul

11gopher-root%3a%5b-data04.-data0401 %d>.8. University of Minnesota, <URL:gopher:/IlentLmed.umn.edu:71/11/newsl citations >.9. University of Iowa College of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Electric Differential MM Laboratory, <URL:http:l

indy.radiology.uiowa. edu VirtualHospital.html >10. University of Washington, Department of Statistics,<URL:http://www.

stat.washington.eduITALARIAlTALARIA.html>.11. Pharmaceutical Information Associates, Ltd., <URL:http://pharminfo.com/drugdb/db-mnu.html>.12. University of Tennessee at Knoxville, College ofNursing,<URL:http:lnightingale.con.utk.edu:7010Ihomepage.html

>.13. University of New Hampshire, Department of Nursing, <URL:http://unhinfo.unh.edu/unh/acad/health/nursingl

index.htrnb-.14. NetRep Explorist, <URL:http://www.netrep.com/globallbizlpgLhtml>.15. University of Kansas, <URL:http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu:801-nsweenl >.16. Emergency Medicine Bulletin Board System, <URL:http://www.njnet.coml- ernbbs/s.17. Medical·Coliege of Wisconsin,<URL:http://chorus.rad.mcw.edu/chorus.html>.18. National Library of Medicine, <URL:ftp:/nlmpubs.nlm.NIH.GOV/BIBS/CBM/>.19. Stanford University and the University of California at San Francisco, Divisions of General Internal Medicine,

<URL:http://www-med.Stanford. EDU/MedCentre/MedSchoollDGIMI Teaching/Modules-index.htrnl >.20. Marshall University School of Medicine, <URL:http://medicus.marshall.edu/medicus.htm>.21. University of Washington, Departrnent of Radiology, <URL:http://www.rad. wasninqtcn.eou/».22. Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Emergency Medicine, <URL:http://emergency.mgh.harvard.edul

wice.htm >. _23. Loyola University (Chicago) Medical Education Network,<URL:http://www. meddean.luc.edullumen/MedEdl

Medpage.html>.24. MedSearch America, <URL:gopher:/Igopher.medsearch.com.9001/1 >.25.National Library Medicine, <URL:http:www.nlm.nih.gov/extramural-research.diflvisible-human.html>.26. National Museum of Health and Medicine, Human Developmental Anatomy Center <URL:http:bubba.afip.ntill>.27. General Electric Corporate Research and Development, <URL:http://www.ge.com/crd/iv/three-dim-medical.html

7

>.28. Harvard Medical School.<URL:http/lwww.med.harvard.edu/AANLlB/home.html>.29. Mednexus, <URL:http://www.mednexus.comlmed-illustrator/index.html>.30. National Library of Medicine, <URL:http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd.dir/oIL dirt>.31. Center for Advanced Studies, Research, and Development in Sardinia, <URL:http://www.crsr.it/- france/MEDI-

CAL/institutions.html >.32. Telemedicine Research Center, ,URL:http://tie.telemed.org/>.33. University of Washington, Image Computing Systems Laboratory, <URL: http://icsl.ee.washington.edu/-carbraljel

tmresources.html >.34. East Carolina University School of Medicine, Center for Health Sciences Communication, <URL:http://

www.telemed.med.ecu.edu/telemenu.htm >.35. Marshall University School of Medicine, <URL:http://ruralnet.mu.wvnet. edu/e-.36. Health Care Financing Administration, <URL:http://www.ssa.gov/hcfa(hcfahp2.html>.37. Department of Health and Human Services,<URL:http://www.os.dhhs.gov/>.38. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, <URL:http://www.fda.gov/fdahome-page.html>.39. National Institute on Aging, <URL:gopher:llgopher.os.dhhs.gov/1/dhhsl aoalaoalagepages >.40. National Library of Medicine, <URL:http://text.nlm.nih.gov/>.

138 Ann Lib Sci Doc


41. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, <URL:http://www.cdc.gov/>.42. Public Health Service, <URL:http://phs.os.dhhs.gov/phs.html>.43. World Health Organization, <URL:http://www.who.ch/programmesIWHOProgrammes.html>.44. National Health Information Center, <URL:http://nhic-nt.health.org/>.45. Duke University Medical Center Information Systems, <URL:http://www.mcis.duke.edu:80/standards/>.46. United Technologies National Standards System Network, <URL:http://hsd www.res.utc.com/std/gateway/

orgindex.html>.47. American Medical Informatics Association,<URL:http://amia2.amia.org/>.48. American Psychological Society, <URL:http://psych.hanover.edu/APS/>.49. International Society of Nephrology - Renal Pathology Society, <URL: http://synapse.uah.ualberta.calsynapse/

OOOp0035.htm>.50. Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Department of Ophthalmology, <URL:http://www.meeLharvard.edu/rpeeil

DJOhome.html>.51. -Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Department of Radiology and the William H. Welch Medical

Library, <URL:http://jmi.gdb.org/JXl/ejourn.html>.52. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, <URL:http://www.crawford.com/cdc/mmwr/mmwr.html>.53. Internet Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association, <URL:http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/

cwis/units/medcntr/Lee/HOMEPAGE.HTML>.54. International Network for Interfaith Health Practices, <UREL:http://www.interaccess.com/ihpneVhealth.html>.55. Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Neurology, <URL:http:// demOnmac.mgh.harvard.edu/

hospitalweb.html>.56. Global Network Navigator, <URL:http:!(nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/wic/med. toc.htmls.57. Emory University Health Sciences Centel'J.jbrary, .URL:http://www.cc.emory.eduIWHSCUmedweb.html#toc2>.58. Yahoo! Corp., <URL:http://www.yahoo.comlHealth/>.

(Source: Bringing Health Care Online: The Role of Information Technologies; Office of Technology Assessment, Con-gress of the United States, Appendix E, Electronic Health Information Sources, page 207-211.)

The sites listed above are only small fraction of existing sites and new sites are being developed at a very alarmingrate [27].

Vol 43 No 4 December 1996 139

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