In order to communicate, you have to know something! According to R. M. Winger, ``Professors know lots of things---if you give them time to look them up.'' Part of being an expert is knowing where to look to find information.
As part of your Project C, you will need to look up information on your chosen topic (so that you will have something to write about). Here are some pointers about finding information in the electronic world. Part of your homework for this week will be an Internet scavenger hunt to practice these techniques of information gathering.
To navigate the World-Wide Web, you need to know the basics of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Here are some examples of different types of URLs. Try clicking on them.
This is a standard Web address. The ``http'' stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol.
The gopher protocol predates the World-Wide Web. Gradually
falling into disuse, it is a
method for making information publicly available on the
Internet, but without hyper-text markup. This particular
address can be accessed
either by gopher protocol or by
http protocol. Notice how
much nicer the http interface is at the address http://leviathan.tamu.edu/.
Here ftp stands for File Transport Protocol.
This is a special URL that calls up the indicated newsgroup. (The machine your Web browser is running on has to have a connection to a news server for this to work.)
This is another special URL. If the Web browser supports it, this URL pops up a ``Compose Mail'' window.
This shows a list of the files and subdirectories in the root directory of the computer where the Web browser is located, assuming that you have permission to read them. If you try to access a file that you do not have permission to read, you will get an error message.
In general, a URL has the form
protocol://machine-name/path. The path should end
with a slash / if it is a directory, but it should not end with a
slash if it is an ordinary file.
It is a well-worn cliché that getting information from the Internet is like getting a drink of water from a fire hose. There is a flood of information, but how do you find what you are looking for without drowning?
If you have a general idea of what you are looking for, then a good place to start is an on-line index. If you are looking for local information about Texas A&M, then you might start with the Texas A&M home page. Suppose, for instance, that you want to find out about the Texas A&M skydiving club. You could click on ``Organizations,'' then on ``Entertainment and Recreational,'' and then you will see an entry for Texas A&M Skydiving Club. Try it!
Suppose you are looking for information about a specific mathematical topic, wavelets, for example. You could start with the subject index at Yahoo, click on ``Science,'' click on ``Mathematics,'' and there you will find an entry for ``Wavelets.'' Or you could start at the WWW Virtual Library, click on ``Mathematics,'' click on ``Specialized Fields,'' and click on ``Wavelets.'' Try it!
Suppose you would like to know about studying mathematics at the Universität Ulm. You could go to the list of Mathematics Information Servers at the Penn State Department of Mathematics, click on ``Mathematics Department Web servers,'' scroll down the list to Germany, and select Universität Ulm. Try it! (Note that overseas connections are often slow.)
If you find some useful lists or useful Web pages, you can record them for future reference by using your browser's hotlist feature. In Mosaic, the drop-down Navigate menu has a Hotlist entry; in Netscape, there is a Bookmarks entry on the menu bar.
Here are some links to Internet subject indices.
Also, keep in mind that newsgroup FAQs (frequently asked questions) can be good starting points for researching a topic. I mention in particular the newsgroups sci.math, sci.math.symbolic, and sci.math.research. There are also several newsgroups devoted to education. You can search past postings to newsgroups through Deja News.
Many of the directories listed above let you search on subject keywords. It is also possible to do automated searches on all the words in the text of Web pages. This is a useful technique if you have a topic in mind, but you have no idea where the associated resources might be located. For example, suppose you want to find information about the mathematical theory of chaos. You could go to InfoSeek and type in the word ``chaos.'' You will get back some irrelevant references, but there will also be some hits that are of interest. Follow the links and see what turns up! Or you could try the AltaVista search page and type in ``chaos'' there.
Here are some other search engines to try:
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), not all the information in the world exists in electronic form. Sometimes you will have to go to the library to consult physical books and journals! Still, the computer can be a big help in finding out what interesting materials are available in the library.
It was not so long ago that all libraries had card catalogues filled with index cards. Now most library catalogues exist only in electronic form. Let's try searching the main catalogue at the Texas A&M Evans Library for practice.
Since we are going to be talking with an IBM mainframe
computer, it is convenient to use the program x3270,
which emulates an IBM 3270 terminal. On the CalcLab machines,
click the mouse on the background to bring up the root menu,
click on ``Programs,'' then ``x3270,'' then ``NOTIS.''
(On the main mathematics server, select ``Terminals,'' then
``x3270,'' then ``NOTIS.'')
Now follow the on-screen prompts. You may need to type in
cat to select the catalogue and then amtam
to select the main TAMU catalogue.
(The PCs in the university computer labs also have a 3270 terminal emulator installed.)
Here are some sample searches to try once you get into the catalogue.
What do you think those keyword searches were looking for? (You can get some help on keyword searches by typing exp k).
Finding books is rather straightforward, but how do you find journal articles? There is a comprehensive index of publications in mathematics for the last fifty years called Mathematical Reviews. You can consult the paper version (exercise: find the call number---it's at your finger tips!), but even better, you can search the electronic version.
The simplest way to access the electronic Mathematical
Reviews is via your Web browser. (The library's
subscription agreement with the American Mathematical Society
allows you to do this only from TAMU campus machines.) Go to the
URL http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/
and click on ``Start MathSciNet Search.''
The search form is quite intuitive. See if you can find out how
many papers the late Paul Erdös published in 1994.
Did you know that you can consult the library catalogues of many other universities from your terminal? If you would like to know if The LaTeX Companion is held by the Rice University library, or by the University of Houston library, or by the library at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, you can find out. Start from Yahoo's list of University Libraries and follow the links. (Of course, not every library uses Notis; you will have to figure out how to navigate each library's on-line catalogue.)
Sometimes you may know that a file exists out there on the
Internet, but you do not know where. (Maybe you need to
uncompress a .zip file on your home PC, and you know
there is unzip.exe out there somewhere, but where?)
In such cases, archie is a useful tool.
There are many interfaces to archie. You can access archie from
your Web browser via a fill-in form. Some systems (e.g.,
tam2000 and the main mathematics server) have an
archie client installed as a program that you can call from the
command prompt. You just say archie
unzip.exe, and after a little wait you will get back a list
of anonymous ftp sites from which you can download that file.
Comments to Harold P.
Boas.
Created Sep 24, 1996.
Last modified Sep 25, 1996.