Obviously, a simple DIR wouldn't be very useful. A variety of resources are available on the Internet to aid in locating information. Many Internet sites are archie servers . Some Internet sites are gopher servers .
Gopher provides automatic searches to identify relevant archie sites, usually through a menu system.
There are a growing number of veronica servers on the Internet. Veronica provides an automatic keyword search of selected gopher menus, to identify potentially relevant gopher menu lines. A collection of servers supporting keyword search, with scored searching through successive narrowing of queries. There are other directory sites particularly oriented towards finding Internet resources. Particularly good for locating resarch-oriented materials.