GopherCON '95
______________________________________________________
This workshop/conference will be an excellent opportunity to
learn about next-generation information system technologies
such as GopherVR and the IICM's Hyper-G system in an informal
workshop setting.
Highlights of GopherCON '95 will include new technology such
as 3D user interfaces, applying spatial document clustering to
searching document collections, and hypermedia technologies
including the IICM's Hyper-G system (which supports Gopher, HTTP,
and Hyper-G clients and hypermedia authoring tools for hypertext
and video).
GopherCON '95 will be a workshop-format meeting with limited
attendance to promote discussion. Because attendance is limited,
we suggest that you register as soon as possible.
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GopherCON '95
Agenda
______________________________________________________
Friday June 9
-------------
8:00 - 9:00 REGISTRATION
9:00 - 9:15 Introduction and welcome
9:15 - 10:30 New U of M Gopher developments:
GopherVR and VRML [1]
Gopher and OpenDoc [6]
IICM, NCSA and Gopher collaboration [3]
10:30 - 10:45 Break
10:45 - 11:15 Document Clustering for GopherVR [4]
11:15 - 11:45 Customizing Unix Servers for 3D [7]
11:45 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:00 GopherSurfer, AppleSearch, and GopherVR [8]
2:00 - 2:30 The Hyper-G Information System [2]
2:30 - 3:00 Break
3:00 - 3:30 The New/Improved Jughead [14]
3:30 - 4:00 Blue Skies Gopher [13]
4:00 - 4:15 Break
4:15 - ??:?? Open forum/Gopher protocol issue discussion
Saturday June 10
----------------
9:00 - 9:30 Integrating Gopher and WWW [10]
9:30 - 10:00 Linux as a low cost Gopher/HTTP Server [12]
10:00 - 10:30 Multiple item search with Gopher/WAIS [16]
10:30 - 10:45 Break
10:45 - 11:15 Integrating Gopher into the Library Env.[15]
11:15 - 11:45 Gopher gateway Z39.50 and Isite [9]
11:45 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 1:30 Defence Industry Supply Center Gopher [17]
1:30 - 2:00 Gopher searching large databases [11]
2:00 - 2:30 Screen Scraping for fun and profit [5]
2:30 - 2:45 Closing
______________________________________________________
GopherCON '95
Session Descriptions
______________________________________________________
[1]--------------
GopherVR and VRML
-----------------
Next-generation user interfaces for Internet navigation will incorporate
3D scenes as both a graphical document type and as a way to visualize
relationships in a collection of documents (GopherVR). The new GopherVR
clients make it possible to view and navigate current Gopher servers'
document and link collections as 3D scenes, and Gopher+ servers can
easily give GopherVR clients hints about how to display the scene
representing a Gopher directory. GopherVR opens up a new visual
vocabulary for representing the relationships between items in Gopher,
while preserving Gopher traditional strength in serving low-end clients
with low bandwidth links.
This session is an overview of the design rationale and engineering
tradeoffs in the current GopherVR clients, how GopherVR hierarchies and
VRML documents address complimentary problems, and future directions for
GopherVR and VRML development.
[2]---------------------------
The Hyper-G Information system
------------------------------
Klaus Schmaranz <[email protected]>)
Currently, the most popular Internet information systems use
distributed menus and searching (Gopher) or hypertext documents (WWW) to
represent information spaces. The IICM at the Technical University in Graz,
Austria has developed Hyper-G, a second generation information system which
combines a structured hierarchy with hypermedia documents.Hyperlinks are
supported in all document types including text, images, movies, 3D scenes
and PostScript.
One of the most interesting features of Hyper-G is that links between
documents and directories are two-way links, so it is possible to traverse
the link in either direction. This makes it easy to view the collection of
all documents that point to a given directory or document (a good way of
finding related documents). Two-way links also make it possible to
automatically update hypertext references when a document moves; this is
a problem that is not handled well by either Gopher or WWW currently.
This session covers the Hyper-G system architecture, how Hyper-G clients
work, and an overview of authoring hypermedia in Hyper-G to be served to
Gopher, WWW, and Hyper-G clients, and will be presented by a member of the
Hyper-GJdevelopment group from Graz.
[3]-----------------------------------------------
Update on the IICM, NCSA, and Gopher collaboration
--------------------------------------------------
The Hyper-G, NCSA Mosaic, and Gopher developers recently announced a joint
development effort to produce VRweb 3D VRMLJclients for use with Gopher,
Hyper-G and Mosaic clients. This session is an update on the progress of
this effort.
[4]-----------------------------
Document Clustering for GopherVR
--------------------------------
One of the reasons for developing GopherVR is to make it possible to
represent relationships between documents in a collection by spatially
grouping the documents in a 3D scene. The is a particularly interesting
technique when applied to searching and browsing a document collection.
This session covers how we are clustering documents on GopherVR-aware
servers, and how other search engines can use GopherVR clients to display
clusters of documents.
[5]-------------------------------
Screen Scraping for Fun and Profit
----------------------------------
Screen scraping (harvesting information from 3270 terminal sessions) is one
way to to provide an easy-to-use Gopher interface to information that is
only available via a terminal-based interface. This session covers how a
Unix gopher gateway was written to efficiently harvest information student
grade information from 3270 terminal sessions, reformat the information,
and present it via Gopher. If you have legacy systems that are not going to
migrate to client/server technology anytime soon, you may want to apply
these techniques to free your data without creating a shadow database system.
[6]-----------------------------------
Gopher and OpenDoc component documents
--------------------------------------
The philosophy of the Gopher developers at the University of Minnesota has
always been to develop small, modular applications, and OpenDoc's component
architecture is a good match for this philosophy. This session will include
an overview of OpenDoc and how we plan to integrate Gopher with OpenDoc
documents.
[7]------------------------------------
Customizing Unix servers for 3D clients
---------------------------------------
This sessions covers how to customize an existing Unix server for GopherVR
clients. You'll find out how easy it is to take an existing Unix Gopher
server and have it return a +3D: attribute to specify a 3D scene.
[8]-----------------------------------
GopherSurfer, AppleSearch and GopherVR
--------------------------------------
An update on the popular Macintosh Gopher server software, how to integrate
this software with the AppleSearch full-text search engine and how to make
your GopherSurfer 3D-savvy.
[9]-------------------------------
Gopher gateway to Z39.50 and Isite
----------------------------------
Z39.50 servers are commonly used for library online catalogs, and there has
been a Gopher gateway to Z39.50 catalogs for the last year. This session
covers new developments in integrating Gopher with Z39.50 and Isite.
[10]----------------------
Integrating Gopher and WWW
--------------------------
HTMLJpages are a popular document format, while Gopher hierarchies are fast
to navigate and let you associate abstracts, alternate views, and other
meta information with any type of document. This session looks at how to
publish HTMLJdocuments from Gopher servers and point Gopher links at
HTMLJdocuments on WWW servers to serve the widest possible community and
take advantage of the strengths for both Gopher and WWW.
[11]----------------------------------------------------------
Using Gopher for Structured Searching of a Very Large Database
--------------------------------------------------------------
This session covers how to use FreeWais-SF and Gopher+ electronic forms
to publish and make searchable (by field) a very large database. Gopher+
forms make it possible to search on fields without exposing the user to
FreeWAIS-SF syntax. The database published was the Books in Print
database.
[12]-----------------------------------------------
Champagne Tastes on a Beer Budget
Linux as a Low Cost Option for a Gopher/HTTP Server
---------------------------------------------------
Steven Kirby <[email protected]>
This session will discuss the University of Georgia Libraries' experience
running a Gopher and HTTP server under the Linux operating system. Our
server (gopher://scarlett.libs.uga.edu) has been in production for over a
year and has served over a quarter of a million transaction without a hitch,
despite the fact that the machine our Gopher server runs on is a lowly
386DX-40 mhz system with 8 megabytes of memory and a 420 Mbyte IDE hard
disk. This session will address a number of issues relating to running a
Gopher server under Linux, including hardware options, obtaining and
installing Linux, and selecting Gopher server software that is appropriate
to a particular site's needs. This session will be of interest to persons
and organizations who prefer the stability and functionality of a
Unix-based Gopher server, but whose budgets might not be able to
accommodate a workstation or server to run a commercial variant of Unix.
[13]-------------
Blue Skies Gopher
-----------------
Dave Brooks <[email protected]>
Blue Skies is a system build on top of the Gopher protocol which was
originally desiged for displaying interactive weather maps. This session will
look into the latest developments of the Blue Skies technology and will look
at the new version of WSGopher (which supports Blue Skies).
[14]--------------------
The new/improved Jughead
------------------------
Rhett 'Jonzy' Jones <[email protected]>
This presentation on "jughead" (a gopher menu search engine and hierarchy
tool) covers the basics of setting up a Jughead server and a new/improved
version of Jughead which is anticipated to be functional prior to the
conference dates. It is anticipated this new version of jughead will
propagate queries to other jughead servers.
[15]----------------------------------------------
How to keep Gopher alive?
Integrate Gopher system into library environment
--------------------------------------------------
Peter Wei He <[email protected]>
David Tyckoson <[email protected]>
An overview of our experience at the University at Albany Libraries.
Our Gopher started in April 1993 and won the recognition of one of the best
academic Gophers in a PACS-L survey in November 1993. This presentation
will go over the building up of the University Libraries Gopher, its
growth and expansions, and evolvements into the subject reference services
in the libraries. The tactics to involve as many librarians as possible
into the gopher maintenance will be discussed, along with how to coordinate
with library system people and the campus computing centers. This is a
successful story of librarians building up a gopher, and keeping it
competitive in current intriguing Internet world.
[16]---------------------------------------------------------
List and mutiple items search in Gopher using Wais Indexing
-------------------------------------------------------------
Paolo Caturegli <[email protected]>
Widespread use of distributed information has created an ever increasing
number of sites which offer any possible kind of data. In this situation
the use of a Gopher server together with Wais indexing engine give users
one of the most powerful tool for network information retrival. Our
experience in apply the combination of Gopher and WAIS caused us to look
at a way to use this distributed server technology for libraries catalog
searches. We have modified the Wais server to build an index not only on
the whole document - in our case a library catalog - but selectively
building a number of different indexes from the subsets of the same
document. This approach give us a great deal of flexibility and give users
and librarians independence: users can connect to a specific gopher server
in our area and consult the different catalogs, while librarians can keep
using specialized software without the fear of overloading their computer
resources.
Our users also asked us for a way to choose between different catalogs or
a way to chose from all the catalogs at a specific library or site. This
pushed us to make some changes in the Gopher protocol and to define a
couple of new Gopher types. The first gives users a chance to do a search
on distributed indexes, assigning a symbolic name which then appear on the
Gopher client menu. We have call this a "real" gopher type. The second is
identifyed as a "functional" type. The server pass the different WAIS
indexes type to the client, but the user can select one or more of those
from a list. In this situation the user have to make the choice to select
the indexes needed. The results of the different usage of the new defined
types is a unique list of gopher items ordered by Wais score, independently
from the different sites where the indexes are located.
[17]-----------------------------------------------
The Defense Industrial Supply Center's venture into
the Gopher World - A Three Year + Adventure
---------------------------------------------------
John J. Boris, Sr. <[email protected]>
A grand tour of the Defense Industrial Supply Center's Gopher and HTTP
servers and their Electronic BidBoard and how they integrate with each
other. We started experimenting on the use of Gophers in 1992 and now use
it as a means to get to our Unix BBS for Solicitations. The presentation
will emphasize how the Internet and Public Domain Code were used to achieve
our goal. The DISC EBB/Gopher/HTTP/FTP are running on a DELL Pentium 90mhz
server with 4gb of space. The EBB is a BBS running GDXBBS by Jay Snyder
with modifications by myself and Rich Heim. The data on the EBB is shared
with the gopher and HTTP server.
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R E G I S T R A T I O N I N F O R M A T I O N
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______________________________________________________
GopherCON '95
sponsored by
The University of Minnesota
June 9 - 10, 1995
at the
Radisson Hotel Metrodome
Minneapolis, Minnesota
______________________________________________________
GopherCON '95 will take place Friday and Saturday June 9 and 10
in Minneapolis, MN at the Radisson Hotel MetroDome (the site of
the last two Internet Gopher conferences). Features for this
year's GopherCON will include:
- Tutorials for new gopher server administrators.
- New gopher 3D user interfaces; component software
- Showcasing interesting gopher applications, including
clients, servers, tools, new subject areas etc.
- Forum for gopher software folk to discuss gopher
protocol extensions, tools, and new functionality.
Conference registration will be $100 and will include lunch on
Friday and Saturday and the all-important conference T-shirt.
Optional evening activities planned for Friday and Saturday
nights are not included in the registration fees.
GopherCon '95 information can be found in inside the directory
"Information about Gopher" on gopher.tc.umn.edu port 70. If you
have a URL-savvy client you can use this URL:
<URL:GOPHER://boombox.micro.umn.edu/11/gopher/Gopher_Conference_95>
You may register directly via email to
[email protected].
Please provide the following information:
Name:
Institution:
Position:
Mailing Address:
Email Address:
Phone Number:
Fax Number:
Emergency Contact & Phone:
Hotel in Minneapolis where you will be staying:
T-shirt Size: (Medium, Large, X-Large, XX-Large)
Number and Sizes of Additional Shirts at $15 each:
Special Dietary Needs:
You may register via email, however a check for the full
registration fee and any additional t-shirts must be received by
May 20, 1995 to guarantee your space. Registrations and fees received
after this date will be charged a late fee of $100 and will be subject
to space availability. We are unable to accept credit cards, purchase
orders, or cash. Please make checks or money orders payable to the
University of Minnesota and mail them to the following address:
Gopher Conference Registration
Distributed Computing Services
University of Minnesota
152 Shepherd Laboratories
100 Union Street, SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
If you have any questions, please call 612/625-1300 or send email to
[email protected]
Hotel reservations for the Radisson Hotel Metrodome can be made by
calling the hotel directly at 1-800-822-MPLS. Please mention you
are with the Gopher Conference to receive the conference rate of
$72/single or $82/double. Last year the Radisson filled up, so
we suggest making your travel plans early, if possible. Airfare
discounts are also available. Contact Carlson Travel Consultants
at 1-800-825-9190 to receive the Gopher Conference fares.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neophytos Iacovou Distributed Computing Services
University of Minnesota 100 Union St. SE
email: [email protected] Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA