INTERNET BASE SERVICE

Jacob M.S Dawngliana Roll no. 15 Deptt. Of Library & Info. Sc. II Semester

The Internet began way back in 1969 when it was called ARPANet (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) and was used exclusively for military purposes. It soon merged with non government and academic networks, which grew and eventually came to be called Internet in the year 1979. By mid 1990s, the Internet was made up of over 60,000 networks.1 Why do people use the Internet? A few reasons could be: distance learning, looking up factual information, improving workplace productivity, and for personal entertainment. The Internet is a medium for communication and accessing the information in digital form from a vast resource of databases. What can the Internet do? is a usual question. This question is never satisfactorily answered. The Internet allows us to be in contact with a lot of people. There are tools, such as electronic mail, Telnet, World Wide Web and many more, to assist us in communicating with people and retrieve information. They are often more than eager to help out, providing answers to questions and engaging us in thoughtful discussions. A few usages of the Internet is to - To access electronic books, journals and other documents - Retrieving information from databases of various large libraries As we have mention earlier, there can be many types of internet services tools. Some of the most common and widely used are : 1. World Wide Web/WWW/W3: Web generally refers to the collection of hyper linked web pages available on the Internet that can be easily accessed with software usually called a browser. Different search tools have been devised in order to assist people in finding information on the largest repository of documents in the world. These search tools can be divided into two main categories: `subject directories' and `search engines. 2. ELECTRONIC MAIL: Electronic Mail is one of the most widely used services. Electronic Mail was originally design to allow a pair of individual to communicate via computer. The current electronic mail systems provide services that permit complex communication and interaction. For example Electronic mail can be used to: - Send a single message to many recipients. - Send a message that includes text, audio, video or graphics. 2 3. TELNET: Telnet, which stands for Telecommunications Network, is a protocol that provides a way for users (or clients) to connect to multiuser computers (or servers) on the Internet, whether in the next building or across the
1 2

Arora, Jagdish. Web-Base Digital Resources and Services: Trends and Innovation Comer, Douglas E. Web & E-Commerce Inside

other side of the world. In most cases, users use Telnet to communicate with a remote login service. There can be many other service tools other than the above points listed out. This service tool helps a lot in accessing and retrieving information. It works a lot in exchanging and in storing of data. Thus, anyone can make use of any of these service tools for publishing ideas and information to a potentially large audience online at greatly reduced expense and time delay. INTERNET BASE LIBRARY SERVICE Internet is now becoming a vital part of library services. It has modernized the way by which libraries provide information sources and services to the users. It is serving as a platform to provide access to wide variety of resources beyond the four walls of the libraries both licensed and free. One of the important Internet based library services is Access to library holdings through web-OPACS and provision of circulation services through the library website. One of the important internet base library service is LIBRARY WEBSITES. The starting point in development of the Internet based library service is the development of the librarys website. The web has opened up enormous possibilities for the development and delivery of services to the library users. A well designed site can go a long way in facilitating library users to access library resources and services at their own convenient time and place. Service oriented sites were first initiated with the conversion of the library OPACS into web OPACs. This further got extended with the online provision of databases and full text digitized contents. The present day library websites that we come across are very dynamic and interactive with features like virtual referencing, online chats etc. LIBRARY GATEWAYS Library Gateways contain Subject Directories of reviewed sites. They are collections of databases and sites, arranged by subject, which have been reviewed and recommended by specialists. They usually contain high quality and accurate information, evaluated by subject specialists. Library Gateways are generally used for the purpose of research and reference information. INTERNET BASED DOCUMENT DELIVERY The term electronic document delivery systems implies delivery of electronic version of a document that might involve reproduction of an electronic copy of a document. If it is not already available in electronic format, the libraries had been using fax machines for immediate delivering photocopies of articles via telephone lines. More recently most of the secondary services that were available on CD ROM or through online search services are now available on the Internet where the journals are linked to the publishers site. The technology has now been

perfected and there are several Internet based document delivery services that allow a user to download an article in full-text from their site or deliver them electronically as attachment to e-mails. Lastly, internet is a huge source of academic, research and general information. It is like a global library that everyone can access at any time. So, internet is like a library where people and information are connected.3

Nair, Roman R. Accessing Information Through Internet, 2002.