Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Wed, 15 Apr 1992 12:44:03 CDT
From:         Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      Electronic Mail Directories

2 Messages, 69 Lines
From: Paul Jones <pjones@mento.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: E-mail directories

About six years ago now, UNC began placing e-mail ids in the printed telephone
directory.
At first (for about the first year only) we listed only those who had actual
computer login addresses and read e-mail.
By the next year, we implemented a program we call "paper mail". Under this
program, we created mail aliases for every faculty and staff member at UNC-CH.
Those who never loggedin to a computer were given special addresses. Mail sent
to such special addresses is not kept in electronic mailboxes, but is printed
on special ncr-type envelopes with windows for campus addresses in our campus
mailroom. From there the "paper mail" is delivered as regular "snail mail."
The idea is that folks who want to send mail electronicly shouldn't be
pentalized because the receiver doesn't use a computer. This is especially
helpful when sending to a list of folks, some who read e-mail some who don't;
you need only send once instead of typing separate messages for the non-e-mail
folks. Despite all the worries about the potential problems that we had in the
beginning, the program has worked fairly smoothly and reliably.
We also make our campus phone book available via WAIS and under our CWIS, called
INFO. Serveral INFO terminals are distributed around the campus for those who do
not have network access of their own.
We've also begun to create a distributedly managed mail alias database (based on
excellent work from NCSU) to encourage address simplification. Mail sent to
paul_jones@unc.edu would be forwarded to my preferred e-mail address as
specified by my departmental coordinator. NCSU created a very nice Motif tool
that makes management and lookup in this database very painless even fun.
I agree with Billy Baron that X.500 has the most promise of anything on the
horizon at the moment, but I was only partially impressed by the recent White
Pages project. I fear (perhaps without solid basis) that x.500 is a good idea
that has stuck in committee for too long. I would love to be proved wrong.

Paul Jones
Office FOR Information Technology
University of North Carolina
Paul_Jones@unc.edu
*-----
From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Subject: Re: Internet User Addresses

If you are pretty sure that the person you're looking for has piped
up in any usenet or bit.listserv.* newsgroup, you can search the
"usenet-addresses" server and locate them.  The current index has
some 250,000 entries in 11 megabytes, which once you discard some
duplicate entries is still a lot of people.

Jonathan Kamens does the database, based on an idea from Mike Schwartz;
I'm running a WAIS server based on it, and the reference to the WAIS
server is showing up an a number of gopher systems.  There's a note
about it in the MSEN _Internet Review_, v1n1, which is in the midst
of being edited (use gopher to visit gopher.msen.com, there's a pointer
on the top level menu).

(start soapbox)

I guess it's kind of nice to hear that CNI is starting to think about
maybe perhaps doing something with X.500 some day.  It's also nice to
know that someone is off writing "vision statements", making the rounds
of the lecture circuit, having many fine lunches and dinners.  But
there are a lot of real questions that can be answered today with the tools
we have right at hand, and for all of the talk about "vision" and
"architecture" it'd also be nice to see some services and some code appear too.

(end soapbox)
--
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com
      MSEN Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 741 1120
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