From: orlandini@lheavx.gsfc.nasa.gov (Mauro Orlandini)
Subject: Query about Veronica. Summary
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: Veronica 
Organization: NASA/GSFC Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:46:00 GMT

I would like to thank all the people who answered to my request of information
about Veronica. For all the people interested, I am enclosing the information
file obtained from the Minnesota gopher.

Thank you again, Mauro

=============================================================================

			About the Veronica service


VERONICA: Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives.

Veronica offers a keyword search of most gopher-server menus in the
entire gopher web. As Archie is to ftp archives, Veronica is to
gopherspace. Unlike Archie, the search results can connect you
directly to the data source. Imagine an Archie search that lets you
select the data, not just the host sites, directly from a menu. 
Because Veronica is accessed through a gopher client, it is easy to
use, and gives access to all types of data supported by the gopher 
protocol.

Veronica was designed as a response to the problem of resource
discovery in the rapidly-expanding gopher web. Frustrated comments in
the net news-groups have recently reflected the need for such a
service. Additional motivation came from the comments of naive gopher
users, several of whom assumed that a simple-to-use service would
provide a means to find resources "without having to know where they are."

The result of a Veronica search is an automatically-generated gopher
menu, customized according to the user's keyword specification. Items
on this menu may be drawn from many gopher servers. These are
functional gopher items, immediately accessible via the gopher client
.. just double-click to open directories, read files, or perform 
other searches -- across hundreds of gopher servers. You need never
know which server is actually involved in filling your request for
information. Items that are appear particularly interesting can be
saved in the user's bookmark list.

Notice that these are NOT full-text searches of data at gopher-server
sites, just as Archie does not index the contents of ftp sites, but
only the names of files at those sites. Veronica indexes the TITLES on
all levels of the menus, for most gopher sites in the Internet.  258
gophers are indexed by Veronica on Nov. 17, 1992; we have  discovered
over 500 servers and will index the full set in the near future. We
hope that Veronica will encourage gopher administrators to use very
descriptive titles on their menus.

To try Veronica, select it from the "Other Gophers" menu on 
Minnesota's gopher server, or point your gopher at:

Name=Veronica (search menu items in most of GopherSpace) 
Type=1 Port=70 Path=1/Veronica Host=futique.scs.unr.edu

Veronica is an experimental service, developed by Steve Foster and
Fred Barrie at University of Nevada. As we expect that the load will
soon outgrow our hardware, we will distribute the Veronica service
across other sites in the near future.

Please address comments to: gophadm@futique.scs.unr.edu

November 17, 1992 
Steve Foster
==============================================================================

--
  +--------+    Mauro Orlandini      |   
  ||\    /||       Code 666          |   I find television very educating.      
  || \  / ||         NASA            |   Every time somebody turns on a set, I
  ||  \/  ||  Laboratory for High    |   go into the other room and read a book
  +--------+  Energy Astrophysics    |                         Groucho Marx
================================================================================
Internet:                       Bitnet:                         SPAN:
orlandini@lheavx.gsfc.nasa.gov  orlandini@lheavx.span.nasa.gov  15426::orlandini