Fortunately, publishers have put out dozens of books about the Internet and its services in the past couple of years. The first of these books, The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog by Ed Krol, is still the best overall introduction. The resources of the Internet grow hourly. The thousands of free public servers on the Internet hold a significant portion of human knowledge, from developments in plasma physics to recipe collections and archives of fine art. Once you have access to the Internet, you can use a variety of applications to retrieve the information you want.
Email connects the Internet to commercial online services and other networks.
Mailing lists allow large numbers of email subscribers to maintain running discussions on topics of special interest, from schizophrenia to Slovakian politics. Telnet allows you to log into remote servers over the Internet.