Internet
he Internet is an international network of networks of personal, institutional, and company computers located throughout the world. The networked computers have compatible communications standards so they can share information with one another, thus enabling access to databases from remote sites around the world.
Most of the organizations on the Internet are government agencies and educational institutions, along with a growing number of commercial (business) sites and pages put up by individuals. The Internet is a growing and changing system, so don't expect the Internet to look the same every time you use it. In fact, address of files/documents change more often than one might expect. Sometimes files disappear entirely. When citing a source from the Internet, be sure to include the date and time you retrieved the file or page. The Internet has several uses:Blog (short for Weblog). A blog is an online journal or diary which is updated on a regular basis, usually by one person or specific group (academic, government, corporate, or family).
Electronic mail (e-mail): Individuals can send messages to one or more person(s) around the world from a personal computer. The speed of the transmissions and the fact that the other person need not be logged on at the same time, are great advantages of this method of communication. (Comparatively speaking, a FAX machine must be hooked up and switched on at the time of transmission.)
FTP (File Transfer Protocol). FTP allows for the transfer of files on one computer on the Internet onto another. Text files and software programs are two kinds of files frequently requested.
Listserv discussion groups. Covering a wide range of topics, people with similar interests can discuss topics via e-mail with other people around the world, without having to know individual addresses. People with electronic mail accounts can subscribe to any list they choose. Everyone on the list sees all the messages posted to the list and can choose to respond to the list as a whole or to the person who posted the original message. There are directories with the names and topics of Listservs that can be found online (via gopher and other methods).
RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication). A XML format method used to receive ongoing updates from Web news sites and headlines, event listings, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums, library catalogs, and blogs. RSS may be something that is downloaded to a desktop or a Web based RSS Aggregator, allowing someone to view updates online. (Note: there is an equivalent service in some libraries, including CSU. These are called “alerts” and they send users who sign up for them new tables of contents from journals and/or the results of searches in specified database(s) on a weekly, monthly, or other basis. CSU affiliates may want to set up their own alerts; see Alert Services for how.)
Telnet. A way to log onto a computer on the Internet and be able to conduct an interactive session as if the user is physically located at that site. This is one way to reach and search library catalog, information databases, campus wide information systems, freenets (local community computer networks), and electronic texts. (More and more of the same information is becoming available on the World Wide Web.)
Usenet discussion groups. These display newsgroup forums, each on a particular topic. It is not necessary to subscribe to these lists (although one can), making it readily avail/able for users.
Wiki. A wiki is an online resource that is designed to be added to or changed by anyone on the Web. Content is collective and there are no signed articles. (Thus, author identity and qualification(s) are unknown.)
WWW (World Wide Web). A hypertext system linking all kinds of documents and Internet sites and mechanisms for searching it. Software is constantly being developed to search WWW; products used include Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Lynx.
Netscape and Internet Explorer are GUI (Graphical User Interface) browsers that display images and text. Lynx is a text-based browser that enables users without image software to search the Web. However, since the Web make use of text, images, and audio files, a more sophisticated browser is desirable because it can access more information in more formats. Browsers/search engines are software that search the Web for pages with information on a specific subject. Not all pages are searched by each browser, so pages can be missed. The most frequently used brower right now is Google (http://www.google.com/). Other popular browsers include AltaVista, Lycos, AskJeeves, and Yahoo!. Metacrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com/) accesses the search engines of more than three browsers (including Google) simultaneously. Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com/) accesses multiple browsers (there is overlap with Metacrawler), and Search.com (http://www.search.com/), powered by AltaVista, searches multiple engines simultaneously as well. At present, there is no one search engine that searches the entire Web; it is unlikely that such an engine will exist in the foreseeable future.