Cover Page Book Review: Krol, Ed. The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog. By: Gregory B. Newby Affiliation: Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Address: 410 David Kinley Hall 1407 W. Gregory Drive University of Illinois Urbana, IL, 61801 Voice: 217-244-7365 Fax: 217-244-3302 Email: gbnewby@uiuc.edu Krol, Ed. (1992). The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN: 1-56592-025-2. The Whole Internet is the outcome of a relationship between two parties with a track record of creating accessible guides to computer resources. O'Reilly and Associates has published a variety of books directed at Unix users, programmers, and system administrators. Their texts have shown hope for the dream of creating readable computer documentation and manuals. Ed Krol, the author, is Assistant Director of Computing Services at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). He is best known in netland for RFC1118, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet" (Krol, 1989). In this widely- available RFC, Ed moved away from the dryness of previous topics such as, "Network News Transport Protocol" or "Domain Name Administration," towards a more touchie-feelie way of telling relative novices about What's Out There. This book works in at least two ways, for several user groups. First, it is a textbook-style introduction to the world of computer networking using Internet, with plenty of examples. Second, it is a reference guide for people of all levels of experience. Krol states in the preface that his "model audience was a new graduate student in some non-technical discipline" (p. xxi). This book is suitable for classes and workshops on Internet and as a desktop reference for Internet users from all backgrounds. The Whole Internet belongs in most academic libraries, and would be a valued addition to many public, corporate, and school libraries, as well. As Krol mentions, most of his many examples are from the Unix world, as opposed to some other software platform. Many examples are independent of Unix, though. As for all books of this nature, readers will often have need for local expertise to supplement the general information in the book -- for instance, the specific syntax needed to send email via a gateway. Krol takes you most of the way to the things he describes: what it is and how to get there. Specific issues of what command to type and how to get a username are still largely in the domain of your local network administrator (although Krol gives enough information to get started on being your own network administrator, as well!). The topics included in the book will be largely familiar to anyone who has read a network guide or attended a networking workshop, but with some special gems which have not previously been found together in a single work. Expected topics include an overview of the history and functionality of the Internet, using Telnet, FTP (and Anonymous FTP), email use and etiquette, and network news (Usenet). Krol went beyond the basic how-to's by including chapters on some recent resource-identification and use tools: Archie (for searching anonymous FTP sites for particular files), Gopher (a menu-driven distributed information retrieval system, in use as a Campus Wide Information System at many locations), WAIS (the Wide Area Information Server, used for distributed access to full-text and other databases), WWW (Internet-based hypertext), and others, including a list of methods for finding someone's email address. The basics go from page 1- 154. Specific tools are discussed from pages 155-259. An additional chapter discussed dealing with problems ranging from modem trouble to ethernet wires, with an important but brief section on how to seek help from a network administrator. "The whole internet catalog" is a 48-page listing (plus 6 page introduction) of various information resources, services, and organizations you can reach via Internet which follows the chapters mentioned above. Fifty- eight general topic areas each include access methods for one to eight or so specific resources. The topic list ranges from "Aeronautics and Astronautics" to "Zymurgy," with stops at "Environment," "Pets," and "Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature," to name a few. There are tidbits in this list for even the most experienced Internetworker. The book concludes with an Appendixes on "Getting Connected," "International Network Connectivity," and "Acceptable Use" (the NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy). "Getting Connected" is directed primarily at corporations or other medium-to-large institutions. The best method for individuals to get connected to Internet, apart from accessing a local Freenet, is to "become a student." Finally, the Glossary and Index add value to The Whole Internet as a reference tool. While the breadth of the book is wide, there is some myopia. For instance, the chapter on FTP gives almost a whole page (and a nice diagram) for using "tar," a Unix utility for creating one file from a group of files for easy transport. A very similar utility for the PC, PkZip, is only mentioned parenthetically, and BinHex, for the Macintosh world, does not appear at all (I couldn't find it, anyway). This reliance on Unix for examples is discussed at some length in the opening pages of the book, and seems reasonable -- but it does result in some views of the world that are skewed away from what many people have at home on their desk. Another shortcoming is the paucity of description for non-interactive utilities (except email, of course) and Bitnet-based activities. Of course, Internet was designed with fully interactive access in mind. However, Bitnet-accessible and other non-interactive utilities are only partially replicated with utilities using TCP/IP or OSI. Furthermore, it is often the case that a particular mailing list and its archive is ONLY accessible by sending mail to Listserv (which might be on both Bitnet and Internet), and it is sometimes the case that a fileserver such as Listserv or FTPServe is the only viable way to get a file. This latter case applies especially to sites which are geographically far removed or connected via a very slow or busy link. Methods for non-interactive access to remote resources would be helpful for the number of countries which are only connected to Bitnet (see Krol's Appendix B), and many institutions in North America which only have Bitnet access. More focus on Listserv and it's LDBASE utility (for searching within Listserv databases), in particular, would be desirable. Krol and O'Reilly have succeeded in their quest to make the power of the Internet available to new users. The Whole Internet makes network resources accessible to people who are not computer gurus, who may not even know a computer guru, and who certainly do not have the time to spend days just exploring and sifting through the tremendous amount of information available. The book is not for the computer illiterate, and at times is difficult to follow if you do not have the capability to try something out for yourself. It does cover almost the entire range of Internet activities, from email and telnet through WAIS and gopher, in an easy-to-read manner. O'Reilly has plans to update this book periodically, and may make part of the Resource Guide available in electronic form. The shelf life of the information in The Whole Internet is surely less than a Twinkie -- probably 2 years or less. It's difficult to know whether tools such as gopher, which are making a big splash on the CWIS scene today, will still be recognizable in a few years, and who knows what changes in access methods to FTP sites will be implemented by then? We can only hope that Ed Krol is still writing, and that O'Reilly continues in their mission to produce model texts for computer use. Partially as a vote of confidence, but more because it is the book best suited for the purpose, I will be using The Whole Internet as the required text for my course this semester: "Telecommunications (LIS450CC)" (Newby, 1992). References: Krol, Ed. (1989). "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet." Available: ftp ftp.nisc.sri.com File: rfc/rfc1118.txt Newby, Gregory B. (1992). "LIS450CC: Telecommunication (Syllabus)." Available: ftp gpx.lis.uiuc.edu File: pub/netinfo/class/telecom.syllabus