Introduction
The growth of NSFNET in the last few years has brought the
benefits of networking to researchers at hundreds of
academic, government and industrial sites. Network users
have improved access to research tools, and there are
greater possibilities for collaboration among members of the
research community. But in order to take maximum advantage
of more widespread and improved connectivity, users have to
be aware of the resources that are available to them.
Our goal in publishing the _I_n_t_e_r_n_e_t _R_e_s_o_u_r_c_e _G_u_i_d_e is to
provide a service which, by increasing the visibility of
resources accessible via NSFNET and other parts of the
Internet, will expose users to those facilities that will
help them do their work better. We are depending on the
population of resource providers to furnish us with the
information for the guide. We expect and hope that as
copies of the guide are distributed throughout the commun-
ity, representatives of organizations that maintain
resources we haven't yet mentioned will submit descriptions
for inclusion in the guide.
April 16, 1990 NNSC Introduction
How to Use and Maintain This Guide
The _I_n_t_e_r_n_e_t _R_e_s_o_u_r_c_e _G_u_i_d_e is intended to inform Internet
users about the services available to them on the network.
Similar resources are grouped together in sections. Each
resource has a separate entry that describes the resource,
identifies who can use the resource, explains how to reach
the local network via the Internet, and lists contacts for
more information. For example, Section 1 lists special com-
puting resources on the Internet, such as supercomputer
centers and centers for parallel computing. Thus, research-
ers interested in using a supercomputer can browse through
the entries in Section 1 in search of a supercomputer center
that can accommodate their needs.
Users interested in locating a particular service can check
the tables of contents at the start of each section. In the
future, the NNSC expects to provide an index that allows
users to locate services based on keywords.
Maintaining the Guide
The resource guide is designed to be kept in a loose-leaf
notebook, to make it easy to add or replace sections of
text.
The guide is distributed electronically by the NNSC. If you
wish to receive the guide, send a note to <resource-guide-
[email protected]>. Each section (new or updated) is
sent in an individual message, which contains both a plain-
text and a Postscript copy of a resource description. (The
text in both versions is the same; the Postscript version is
generally easier to read when printed). Users can then add
the new section, or replace the existing section with the
new copy.
If you prefer not to receive the guide via electronic mail,
you may ftp the chapters that are currently available via
April 16, 1990 NNSC Using the Guide
anonymous ftp from nnsc.nsf.net (in directory _r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e-
_g_u_i_d_e). We are maintaining a separate mailing list of peo-
ple who wish to know only when a chapter becomes available
for ftp. If you wish to be on this list, please send a mes-
sage to <
[email protected]>.
April 16, 1990 NNSC Using the Guide
