Gopher is a text-based searching system.
There are a lot of text based and goverment documents that are stored in gophers that are not as easily accessible through the World Wide Web. To start gopher, type gopher at the prompt. One of the best ways to find what you want is to just root around in the gophers and see what is out there. Many of these gophers are also linked through World Wide Web search engines. As long as the person is at an educational institution, searching through gopher is usually quite successful.