Other Internet info sources

Finding info on the Net is not always straight-forward. There are other, older technologies that might help you - such as 'archies' and gophers' and veronicas'. Here's where you can find out how to use these unusual information search tools.

Other pages in this Workshop deal with the more common sources of information and the popular search tools to dig out information from these sources - Web sites, Newsgroups, FTP file collections, email directories and so on. Here, on this page, you will find some of the less-well known search tools and information sources. You can try these when all else fails - or use them to develop your searching skills.

Some of these search methods originate from the earlier days of the Internet - even before the World Wide Web - but sometimes they can still be useful.

We've also included a list of books (yes, from the "real world"!) on finding information on the Internet - and, set up an arrangement with the Amazon Bookshop so that you can buy them on-line. Check out the list lower down the page.

Gophers and Veronicas
Without going into technicalities, "Gophers" are search tools which can search remote computers for information files. Unlike Archies (see our File Finding page), which can only carry out searches based on file names, Gophers carry out a search based on the title of the document.

You can use a special piece of Gopher software to carry out such searches. One source of Gopher software is at:
http://gopher.quux.org:70/Software/Gopher/Downloads/Clients

You can also use your web browser, if you know the location of a Gopher site, using the prefix "gopher://" instead of the more familiar "http://". However, a friendlier gopher tool is a Veronica - the acronym for "Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives"! These are Gopher based search engines which make it easy to find information on Gopher servers all over the world. You can get a list of Veronica servers at:

Further help on this topic...

You'll find further help on this topic, or closely related issues, in the side columns on this page..

http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/internet/gopher/
searching/veronica/

This enables you, not only to search Gopher sites for files, using keywords in the titles, but also provides you with the facilities to find other Gopher sites.

Two points to note before you try to use Gophers or Veronicas:

• Many file library resources require you to use a Telnet program. Windows users will normally find they have such a piece of software already - often in the Windows sub-directory, entitled telnet.exe. Set your browser's applications preference to point to this as your Telnet application.
• If you find, on a Gopher menu, a text document, read this first. It will often give you information on how to log in, and what password to use. Don't worry - this isn't hacking! The files are there to be searched by the public.

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