DESY Library Commission
Hamburg, 07.03.1995

Attendees:
W. Bartel (F11/F22), L. Bauerdick (ZEUS), E. Fieder (DESY-IfH),
F. Gutbrod (T), A. Holtkamp (L), H.-J. Kaiser (DESY-IfH), J.-H. Peters (ZDV), H. Preißner (L), J. Roßbach (MPY), W. Drube (HASYLAB),
D. Schmidt (L) M. Speh (IfH-R), C. Vikenty (DESY-IfH)
Apologies:
A. Wagner (F), L. Bauerdick (ZEUS)

Mr. Schmidt took over the chairmanship from the absent Prof. Wagner and opened the meeting by welcoming the present commission members. He asked Mr. Speh to start his report about the Internet system and the World Wide Web. This lecture will be today's only item.

Internet and the World Wide Web

M. Speh entitled his report "Facilities and Basics about WWW in libraries". In beginning his lecture, he thanked the ladies Fieder and Vikenty (both IfH-Library, Zeuthen) as well as Mrs Holtkamp and Mr. Schmidt (both -L-) for the introduction he got about the work in a library.
He then continued:
The Internet system is a big global data network containing several thousands of regional networks. It allows to proceed electronic mail, interactive conferences, transmission of messages as well as data transfer, and a lot more services. World Wide Web (WWW) is a global utilized information system which has been developed at CERN. It could also be reached through the Internet system and is based on hyper-text programs and gives access to a great number of documents.

After defining the two systems, Mr. Speh then went into the question about what research centers need:
We should like:

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to find national/international information;

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to encourage local and global collaboration;

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to publish and to investigate;

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to learn and to educate.

Now M. Speh came to DESY-libraries necessities and facilities:
Acquisition and cataloging of literature, users services and the formation of trainees. DESY-Documentation is responsible for classifying and indexing of literature and for the computer-based recording. These data have to be administrated and will be of benefit for the users.

Therefore, they have to solve several problems:

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actuality (very important)

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user friendly (important)

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information feed-back (desirable)

Interface technology: Necessary software and hardware must not be bought regarding fund and occasion but regarding very careful requirement analysis and coordination of manpower and material after checking the sources.

WWW offers at a good price:

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users feed back (FORMS) for questionnaire and circulation

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data base interface (Scripts) for search and circulation

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clients information (HTML) for literature data bases and basic information

Discussion

M. Speh's speech raised a heated discussion. Mr. Roßbach asked whether there will be a homogeneous interface for the WWW access. What will be the advantage in face of all other information software used until now? Who's the responsible person for the Internet and the WWW system? From whom they will depend on? Will this work be useful? Mr. Gutbrod wanted to know whether the Internet system will survive.
Mr. Peters answers: A common user interface, MOSAIC (graphic UNIX browser), is available. All software/hardware producers meanwhile follows the Internet standards, the Internet is the only net which will survive.
Furthermore, it was talked about the utilization of Spires through the WWW.

Unfortunately, the time of this meeting will not be long enough to discuss all possibilities of using WWW by the DESY-libraries more intensively. This discussion will surely be held in one of the next meetings.

Finally, Mr. Schmidt thanked M. Speh for his detailed and understandable introduction to the Internet and the WWW system and for presenting a possibility for their utilization through the DESY-libraries.
At 13.00 hrs he closed the meeting.

D. Schmidt
(Chairman and Secretary)