Ulmschneider, 'NCSU Libraries' Gopher Server Gains National Recognition', NCSU Libraries Newsletter v20n10 (June 1993) _The NCSU Libraries Newsletter_ Volume 20 no. 10 June 1993 Ulmschneider, John "NCSU Libraries' Gopher Server Gains National Recognition" GOPHER n. 1. Any of various short-tailed, burrowing mammals of the family Geomyidae, of North America. 2. (Amer. colloq.) Native or inhabitant of Minnesota: the Gopher State. 3. (Amer. colloq.) One who runs errands, does odd jobs, fetches or delivers documents for office staff. 4. (computer tech.) Software following a simple protocol for tunneling through a TCP/IP internet. --University of Minnesota Gopher Service In the fall of 1992, Eric Morgan (Library Systems) initiated an intriguing experiment that has achieved national recognition for its vision and creativity. Employing metaphors and an intellectual structuring of knowledge drawn from principles of librarianship, he created a unique library-based gopher server, the first in the state and one of the first in the country. Starting with a limited repertory of services and resources, Morgan has since expanded the server to include hundreds of information resources and services organized in ways that are uniquely useful for Internet travelers who might not be experts in its use. Gopher was invented at the University of Minnesota (home of the Golden Gophers) as a way to provide students and staff flexible and easy electronic access to news, announcements, directories, course schedules, and other information about the university. From its inception, gopher was designed to be a distributed system. It was set up so that a person sitting at one computer could find and retrieve information from computers all over campus--in effect, assembling on a single computer all the information residing on multiple computers on the network. Because of this design, it is simple to expand the scope of gopher to include information resources from networks anywhere on the Internet. To implement this distributed approach to information management, the gopher design employs a client-server architecture. In client-server systems, server software on a computer manages data and indexes, organizes information, and responds to requests for the information. Servers are never accessed directly by a user. Instead, users employ client programs that send inquiries to the server and present the results of the inquiries on their computer screens. The server and the clients can be on entirely different computers because they talk to each other using a strictly defined protocol--a set of rules and definitions that describe how conversation takes place. In the case of gopher, the protocol requires TCP/IP (Telecomunications Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) for network communications. Most computers can use TCP/IP, and it is not tied to any particular type of computer. In addition, gopher clients and servers use a very limited vocabulary of commands and terms and respond to these commands in carefully defined ways. This makes it easy to implement communication with clients because the software needs to deal with only a limited set of commands. The client-server relationship makes it easy for the gopher to handle many different types of information, from regular text files to picture libraries to "pointers" that automatically link the user to other computers or even gophers that may be located thousands of miles away. The server is responsible for organizing and searching for information; the client merely requests and displays information organized by the server. Clients provide many variations on interface refinements, but it is in the servers that the true heart of information services exists. Servers embody and express a purposeful intellectual effort to organize information in a way that is useful and intuitive to users. The intellectual structuring of information on a gopher server, even the content and coverage itself, reflects the individuals responsible for the gopher--their concept of how the information should be organized and their understanding and assumptions about how people try to find information. Usually, information resources that a gopher manager considers "related" are placed into a common directory with a name indicative of its contents. A perusal of many gophers on the Internet will reveal that although they have all been fine- tuned by experience and have many similarities, it is unlikely that the same information will be found in the same directory or under the same name on two different gophers. It is often difficult for a user to know where to get desired information because the information is not organized in a way optimal for novice or even experienced users. Librarianship, of course, is the discipline dedicated to organizing and retrieving information for users, and it is the application of librarianship principles to gopher data organization that has given Morgan's work a national reputation. Morgan's server presents information quite differently from other gophers on the Internet. Under the rubric of "NCSU's Library Without Walls," Morgan's server organizes information available through the gopher in ways familiar to library users. For instance, the "Reference Desk" directory holds atlases, guides, directories, etc. The "Stacks" directory holds electronic journals, books, and other electronic texts. It is maintained by another intriguing electronic invention that Morgan has named "Mr. Serials." Mr. Serials is an electronic alter-ego whose sole purpose is to search the Internet for electronic serials, subscribe to them, and then collect and maintain electronic copies of serials issues on the gopher server. By automating the process of subscription and "stacks maintenance," Morgan single--handedly retains up-to- date collections of most of the electronic serials now available. Morgan has taken the library metaphor a step further by establishing special information repositories as well, called "Discipline-specific study carrels." In the carrels, users can find special and general information resources related specifically to the needs of their discipline. For instance, in the Astronomy and Astrophysics carrel there are NASA Technical Reports, special software (for various computing platforms) for analysis of astronomical data, satellite images, a daily summary of solar activity, and interactive connections to such resources as the National Space Science Data Center and the Space Physics Analysis Network Information Center. Morgan has organized hundreds of useful information resources by discipline in ways easily understood by faculty, staff, and students working in the various disciplines. Organizing information by subject areas can have a powerful impact on the usefulness of the resources. Many gophers provide access to the hundreds of electronic library catalogs now available on the Internet, but they generally organize this information as geographical or alphabetical listings of catalogs--not the most effective or useful arrangements for research purposes. Melissa McBurney, a Reference Department intern, worked with Morgan to develop a list of library catalogs for universities with strong engineering programs. The list is divided into eight sections: aerospace, biological and agricultural, biomedical, environmental, nuclear, petroleum, textile engineering, and a list of universities with overall strength in engineering. Added to the "Engineering" carrel, it provides a powerful tool to locate library resources in both general and very specific engineering topics. McBurney's work has attracted national attention for its thoroughness and its uniquely useful approach to connecting users with needed information resources on the Internet. To access gophers, users need to install a gopher client on their computers and connect the computers to the Internet. Gopher client programs can be obtained from the NCSU Computing Center or from various sources on the Internet. The NCSU Libraries' gopher can be reached by connecting to the Internet address dewey.lib.ncsu.edu. If you need help or additional information about using gopher, contact a reference librarian or send an e-mail message to libref@ncsu.edu.