Scientists on Line: Expanding Access to Scholarly Resources

轻松获取学术资源既是一种挫折，也是一种挑战。科学史上的档案保管员和学者都越来越意识到电子媒体的使用带来的机遇。将提高生产力的工具与资源本身相结合的可能性为更有效、更全面地利用档案带来了巨大的希望。到它结束时，磁盘上的科学家们将处理国会图书馆J·罗伯特·奥本海默档案中的2万多页。在之前的一次拨款中，Kargon博士评估和测试了几种传输介质，包括CD-ROM和数字磁带。然而，他们调查的一个重要结果是认识到基于网络的信息的当前和未来意义。他们的结论是，现有的研究网络--互联网--是允许世界范围内的学术人员获取电子媒体档案的最佳方式。可以对现有的通信软件进行调整，以便于通过互联网访问已转换为数字形式的奥本海默档案。这样做将使全世界的学者和学生能够近乎即时地使用这些资源。根据这项拨款，Kargon博士和他的合作者Jeremy Kargon正在：1)扩展现有的网络协议(WAIS)，以适应电子资源，如图像和多种类型的文件，以便电子档案可以更准确地表示学术文件；2)制作一个原型并传播一个模型信息客户端，以便更好地处理这种扩展以及更广泛的数据类型(包括压缩图像和书目信息)；3)使用先前扫描的奥本海默文档，实施和维护集成这些变更的信息服务器。世界各地配备得当的用户将能够以单一、综合的方式访问这一档案和其他档案。与其他快速发展的网络工具一起，这些努力应该会鼓励基于网络的多媒体资源的激增。

Easy access to scholarly resources is at once a frustration and a challenge. Both archivists and scholars in the history of science have become increasingly aware of the opportunities afforded by the use of electronic media. The possibility of integrating productivity-enhancing tools with the resources themselves holds great promise for more efficient, and more thorough, archive use. By its close, Scientists on Disk, will have processed more than 20,000 pages from the J. Robert Oppenheimer archives at the Library of Congress. Under a previous grant, Dr. Kargon has assessed and tested several delivery media, including CD-ROM and digital tape. Yet an important consequence of their investigations has been to realize the current and future significance of network-based information. They have concluded that the existing research network, Internet, is the best way to allow world-wide scholarly access to electronic media archives. Existing communications software can be adapted to facilitate Internet access to the Oppenheimer archives already converted to digital form. Doing so would make possible the near-instantaneous use of these resources by scholars and students world-wide. Under this grant, Dr. Kargon and his collaborator Jeremy Kargon are: 1) extending an existing network protocol (WAIS) to accommodate electronic resources such as images and multiple-type documents so that electronic archives might more accurately represent scholarly documents; 2) making a prototype and disseminating a model information client to handle better such extensions, as well as a wider range of data types (including compressed images and bibliographic information); 3) implementing and maintaining an information server integrating these changes, using the previously scanned Oppenheimer documents. Properly equipped users around the world will be able to access this and other archives in a single, integrated fashion. Together with other fast-developing network tools, these efforts should encourage the proliferation of network-based, multi-media resources.