| [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Thread Index] | [Date Prev] | [Date Next] | [Date Index] |
PaleoNet is pleased to announce the release of a major upgrade to its communications capabilities. As many of you will recall, PaleoNet's original concept involved an electronic communications system that brought together listservers, FTP, gopher, and world wide web (WWW) components into an integrated package. Moreover, soon after the PaleoNet listservers went on-line last Fall many subscribers requested access to standard listserver options (e.g., digests) that were not available on the PaleoNet listservers at that time. Finally, in the year or so since PaleoNet's inception many discussions have taken place (both on-line and off-line) about the role of electronic communications in the future of paleontology and the means whereby this technology can have an even greater impact on our science. This upgrade represents the product of the original PaleoNet concept, modified by these requests. The upgrade has several parts, listed below. The PaleoNet Pages The PaleoNet Pages are intended as a general purpose on-line clearinghouse for paleontological information. The PaleoNet Pages home page can be found at the following URL... http://www.nhm.ac.uk/paleonet/Index.Html This address is case-sensitive so please be sure that you have all the uppercase and lowercase characters in the correct places. Features of the PaleoNet Pages include: - Information and on-line subscription/unsubscription instructions with e-mail links to all PaleoNet listservers. - Access to the PaleoNet Archives. - Access to the PaleoNet FTP Site. - Access to the PaleoNet Gopher - Access to the PaleoNet Forum (an experiment in the creation of an electronic paleontological journal) The first editorial to appear in the PaleoNet Forum was written by Doug Erwin and is entitled "Quo Vadis Paleontology?". - Access to a large collection of www/ftp/gopher links to on-line paleontological resources. - Access to the Bowlds calendar of paleontological events along with information about upcoming meetings and publications. - Access to a collection of public-domain images of paleontological objects/subjects. - Access to an on-line listing of positions for professional paleontologists. You need not be a PaleoNet listserver subscriber in order to access or use the PaleoNet Pages. In keeping with PaleoNet's underlying theme of bringing paleontologists from all parts of our profession together, individuals from all disciplinary specialties (e.g., vertebrate, invertebrate, micro) and employment categories (academic, industrial, museum, government, education) will find items of interest to them within the PaleoNet Pages. In addition it is hoped that the larger paleontological community will fell free to expand the Pages by suggesting links, providing text-based materials, contributing editorials for the PaleoNet Forum, providing information on upcoming meetings, events, symposia, etc., etc., etc. In order to manage this aspect of PaleoNet operations, PaleoNet has recently been granted the services of Angela Collins, an NHM Museum volunteer, who over the last month has been instrumental in readying the Pages for release. The PaleoNet Gopher The PaleoNet gopher provides an alternative means of accessing PaleoNet materials. The URL of the PaleoNet gopher is... gopher://gopher2.nhm.ac.uk:70/11/.mailinglists At present, the PaleoNet gopher contains space for items obtained from subscribers to the listservers, and the PaleoNet Archives, which are a set of text files detailing all PaleoNet postings between 18 April to 6 June 1995. [Note: we'll be bringing the archives up to date as soon as we can, but this job is being complicated by factors stemming from the bounce loop of several weeks ago.] The archive text files are found in the Digest folder of the PaleoNet gopher. PaleoNet Listserver Digests All PaleoNet listservers now have digest capability. This means that PaleoNet postings can be accumulated until a size limit (right now 72K) is reached at which time a single text file containing all accumulated postings will be e-mailed to you. This option avoids having PaleoNet messages arrive throughout the day. The digests represent an alternative PaleoNet subscription mode. Subscriptions to the digests can be made by sending the following message(s)... subscribe PaleoNet-digest subscribe DataBaseNet-digest subscribe CollectionsNet-digest subscribe CommNet-digest subscribe TrainingNet-digest (depending on which listserver you wish to receive a digest from) to the following address... listserver@nhm.ac.uk Since traffic is low right now on the special-topics listservers you might find the digests for these listservers to be somewhat counter-productive. However, the PaleoNet-digest represents an attractive alternative for those wishing to monitor this list and who don't mind receiving transcripts of conversations that may already be over by the time the digest arrives. At current levels of activity 72K represents 1-2 weeks worth of PaleoNet . With this upgrade, the original vision I had for PaleoNet has been more-or-less fulfilled, at least in a technical sense. PaleoNet will continue to expand its capabilities in response to your ideas, suggestions, questions, and yes, even a few complaints every now and then. It's been an interesting 8 months on PaleoNet. I know I've benefited from being a subscriber, and I hope you have too. Norm MacLeod ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Norman MacLeod Senior Scientific Officer N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet) N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet) Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD Office Phone: 071-938-9006 Dept. FAX: 071-938-9277 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Partial index: