Source: Computers in Libraries, Sept 1992 v12 n8 p53(4). Title: The Internet Gopher. (document delivery service) Author: Gord Nickerson Abstract: The Internet Gopher provides document delivery services for users of the Internet. It simplifies access to data from multiple sources by allowing users a common interface for all requests for data. The program is in the public domain, so new implementations for different platforms are constantly being developed. Future Gopher developments will need to address multimedia retrieval. Subjects: Computer networks - Usage Document delivery - Services Products: Internet - Usage Magazine Collection: 66B3968 Electronic Collection: A12723037 RN: A12723037 Full Text COPYRIGHT 1992 Information Today, Inc. The Internet Gopher At the recent Canadian Library Association Conference in Winnipeg, there was a lot of talk about gophers. Now you may wonder what a prairie gopher has to do with networking; a quick peek at a dictionary provides a clue: gopher n. 1. a burrowing rodent with wide cheek pouches. 2. A native or inhabitant of Minnesota. The busy habits of this little animal produced the slang expression of gopher (or gofer) as someone who runs errands for others. It perfectly describes the Internet Gopher. This Gopher is not an animal but a distributed document delivery service for electronic publishing across a TCP/IP network. It allows a user to access various types of data on multiple hosts in a seamless fashion using a client-server communications model. A Gopher server accepts queries from clients and responds by sending the client a document which may be viewed on the screen, saved to a file, or printed. Gopher was developed at the University of Minnesota in April 1991 by the University of Minnesota Microcomputer, Workstation, and Networks Center to help users find answers to their computer questions. It was soon realized that Gopher also could be used as a replacement for existing campuswide information systems (CWIS) Many campus information systems are used to provide read-only access to online documents and use a hierarchical menu structure to arrange the information. These systems provide online access to calendars, schedules, weather reports, policies and procedures, job posting, news-letters, directories, subject guides, tutorials, and practically any other kind of information you can imagine.(1) Most printed documents start as machine-readable text and can easily be published electronically through an information system. Most CWISs were developed with proprietary software such as Digital's VTX product for VAX/VMS, or perhaps developed locally like the Princeton News Network PNN software running under VM/CMS for IBM mainframes. One of the design goals of Gopher was to move away from expensive, centralized computing and used inexpensive desktop machines as servers in a distributed network. Gopher puts the smarts in the server, making it easy to develop clients for desktop machines with limited memory and CPU power. For example, the MS-DOS client can run on a single floppy PC with an 8088 processor and a mono video card! The downside is that all servers are not alike and range in power from the sophisticated full-text search engine on the NeXt, to the basic file services of the Mac version. There are free public domain server implementations for a variety of platforms including Unix, VAX/VMS, VM/CMS, MVS, and the Apple Macintosh. Since the Gopher source code is readily available, versions for other platforms such as OS/2 and Windows NT may also be developed. The source code can be obtained by anonymous ftp from boom-box.micro.umn. edu in the /pub/gopher directory.(2) A Gopher server manages access to resources on its own computer and also provides access to resources located on other machines running the Gopher server software. Documents and databases can reside on multiple servers located on many different machines across a network. Instead of a massive centrally maintained database, departmental Gopher servers can be set up and linked to a main Gopher. Local departments would then just have to copy and update the files on their local machine, which would then be immediately available to all Gopher users. A Simple Addition to the Daily Routine Most documents are created in machine-readable form and the ease of providing the information through Gopher can make electronic document publishing and delivery a simple addition to the daily routine. Since a Gopher system is easy to maintain, the staffing requirements are less than other information systems. When the University of Calgary evaluated the cost of implementing a CWIS, it estimated the personnel requirements for central information maintenance to be one-fifth FTE for Gopher and one FTE for other information systems.(3) While distributed servers are a large part of Gopher's success, they are only half of the client/server relationship. Separating the database server from the client interface has a number of advantages. From the server's point of view, it merely has to listen at a known port for a connection. With the gopher protocol, the client initiates a connection and sends a series of lines. The server responds with a block of text and then closes the connection. The interface on the client then presents this information to the user. In a traditional terminal session, the host computer has to provide the interface and respond to each character as it is input. The interface on host/terminal systems has traditionally been based on the lowest-common denominator, the dumb terminal. Your 486 may have more raw computing power than the host machine it is connected to, but it still must emulate a terminal. By placing the interface on the client, Gopher is able to escape the tyranny of VT-100 terminal emulation. Users get graphics, pull-down windows, mice, and all the other conveniences of the desktop computing environment. There are clients for the Unix, Xwindows, Macintosh, (HyperCard and a Macintosh application), MS-DOS, NeXTstep, VM/CMS, and VAX/VMS systems. Client software is available by anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu in the/pub/gopher directory. All these clients run over a TCP/IP based network. If you are not on a network and would still like to evaluate Gopher, you can use the VT-100 UNIX client at the University of Minnesota. Telnet to consultant.micro.umn.edu (129.84.132.4) and log in as gopher. Although you do not get the advantage of a graphical client interface, it allows a user on a terminal to access the vast array of information available on various gopher servers around the Internet and to get a feel for the kinds of information available. While the Internet Gopher is a great replacement or front end to many traditional campuswide information services, it also can be used to provide enhanced information services for libraries. The Electronic Library Librarians are good at filtering and organizing information, and Gopher provides an easy way of organizing both local and remote resources to provide better access for users and to help make the electronic library a reality. Consider the problems caused by electronic journals and academic discussion lists. There are a growing number of e-journals, complete with ISSNs and peer reviewing. Some libraries deal with the problem by printing and cataloguing them, others just ignore their existence and leave it up to the individual to determine which journals are available and how to subscribe to them. Most libraries do not even provide directories of e-journals and discussion lists to assist their clients in determining what is available. How many libraries have Psychology Digest (sci.psychology.digest) or bionet.journals.contents listed in their respective subject guides? Dealing with Electronic Journals Gopher provides a way to deal with the problem. A library can take out an organizational subscription to electronic journals and mailing lists and index the files with the Gopher server software. Users can use their Gopher client from their offices to search, read, download, and print articles or documents of interest. For example, the library at the University of Michigan offers Gopher access to PostModern Culture, Psycholoquy, Public Access Computer Systems Review, and Current Cites. Libraries also could offer indexes to their special collections, rare book rooms, and archives. Many of these collections are not included in OPACs but have guides or indexes in machine-readable form on microcomputers. For example, Johns Hopkins University has set up a History of Science Gopher server featuring the Henry Rowland Archive Index and project memos of the J. Robert Oppenheimer Archives. Reference tools, full-text documents, and news services also can be mounted online with Gopher. The electronic books section of the University of Minnesota Gopher server has just about all the Project Gutenberg titles including the 1991 CIA Factbook, the complete works of Shakespeare, and some historical documents. The same system also offers the full text of the Daily Texan, the Minnesota Daily, and the UPI and Claris news services. One complaint about many Gopher servers is the organization by type, a common feature of both online and printed guides to the Internet. A more useful (and difficult) method is to organize access to resources by subject. The University of Minnesota server made an excellent start in this area by organizing its Newspapers, Magazines, and News-letters menu by subject. Multimedia Documents Another problem with Gopher is that it is currently slanted towards the retrieval of text files a time when multimedia is the wave of technology. The current Gopher protocol defines other item-types besides text, but use of these types is discouraged, and most clients currently cannot handle even defined types such as binhexed Macintosh files, DOS binary files, or UNIX uuencoded files. This can cause a problem with the Gopher gateways to other programs such as FTP, Wide Area Information Servers, and the World Wide Web Hypertext system that can process different file types. This situation may change in the near future. The University of Victoria has an experimental Gopher system using a fine arts image database which students are required to examine and critique. The images are digitized. GIF files. The Gopher client has been modified to display the graphic images along with the text. This project demonstrates the possibilities of Gopher for multimedia documents. The Internet community also has been working on mechanisms for delivering other forms of information besides text. The proposed Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) will make it possible for documents to contain graphics, images, and sound. In the near future, it may be possible to search for information on gophers using Gopher and not only retrieve a full-text article, but also a picture and whatever sounds the little animals make. Notes (1.) For more on CWIS, consult Judy Hallman, Campus Wide Information Systems on the Internet [available via anonymous ftp from hydra.uwo.ca in the libsoft directory as CWIS.TXT] and Campus Wide Information Systems [available via anonymous ftp from hydra.uwo.ca in the libsoft directory as HALLMAN.TXT]. (2.) The people behind much of the gopher software can be reached by e-mail at gopher(a)boombox.micro.umm.edu, or at: Internet Gopher Developers 100 Union St. SE #132 Minneapolis, MN 55455 There is also a mailing list for announcements of new gopher servers and software. Send a subscription request to: gopher-news-request@boombox.micro.umn.edu The Usenet News system also has the alt.gopher newsgroup, which is a good source for updates, discussion, and announcements. (3.) Debbie Wong, Campus Wide Information Systems Evaluation. University of Alberta, January 1992. Note: All systems also required one-quarter FTE for departmental information maintenance. Gord Nickerson is the information systems support officer at the School of Library and Information Science, Elborn College, University of Western Ontario. -- End -- .