From: Jane Smith <jds@concert.net>
Subject: Clearinghouse for Networked Info Discovery & Retrieval
Organization: Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and
     Retrieval
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 19:01:57 GMT

The Clearinghouse 
for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR)


On October 1, 1992, the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery
and Retrieval (CNIDR) received a 3-year grant from the National Science
Foundation (NSF). CNIDR is headquartered at the Center for Communications
at MCNC in the Research Triangle Park, NC. The Center for Communications
has provided primary support for the past several months and additional
initial support has come from Apple Computer, Inc., Digital Equipment
Corporation, IBM, NeXT, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill Office of Information Technology.

Two existing staff members have been actively promoting the use of
networked information discovery and retrieval tools such as WAIS, gopher,
archie and WWW at many national and international conferences. CNIDR is
participating with associations such as the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), and the
Reseaux Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne (RARE; the Association of
European Networking Organizations and their users) to further the
development and appropriate uses of networked information. 

In February, 1992 CNIDR, with funding from NSF, held a successful two-day
workshop on the topic of WAIS. The Clearinghouse will use the new NSF
grant to sponsor more workshops, add staff members, and increase its
collection, classification, and dissemination activities. To keep the
Internet community informed of its priorities, goals, and projects, CNIDR
will use as many avenues as possible, including both print and electronic
media. 

One of the first priorities is to provide pointers to the locations of
the various flavors of clients and servers for WAIS, gopher, WWW, and
other similar tools which have been developed for use in the public
domain -- and we need your help. If you have written a client or server
we'd like to hear from you. Our immediate goal is to compile an annotated
list which describes the uniqueness of each tool, attributes the
author(s), and provides a reliable address from which to ftp or otherwise
obtain the tool. With the authors' permissions, we would like to gather
all the different flavors into one or more of our internet-connected
computers and offer "one-stop shopping" for potential users via anonymous
ftp -- and/or other servers such as WAIS and gopher as appropriate.

We're also interested in improving the documentation for installing,
maintaining, and using the tools. If you've written any guides, articles
or descriptions for your local community -- whether technical or end-user
oriented -- we'd like to collect and distribute those as well.

Finally, if any of you have suggestions for other Clearinghouse
activities we'd like to hear from you and consider your suggestions and
concerns in our planning.

Below is an outline of our general goals. We look forward to serving and
hearing from you.

-- Promote and support the implementation and use of neworked information
discovery and retrival (NIDR) applications such as the Wide Area
Information Server (WAIS), the Internet Gopher, the WorldWide Web, and
Archie.

-- Coordinate to create consensus among NIDR applications developers to
ensure compatibility and interoperability.

-- Disseminate information about NIDR applications to the network
community as well as individuals or organizations active with NIDR
applications development.


For more information about the Clearinghouse contact:
George Brett, ghb@concert.net or Jane Smith, jds@concert.net
CNIDR
Center for Communications - MCNC
PO Box 12889
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2889
tel. 919-248-1886 or 919-248-9213
fax 919-248-1405