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Research on the InternetResearch on the Internet
Paul S. Piper,Western Washington UniversityIntroduction 201
Directories 202
Rings 203
Weblogs or Blogs 203
Search Engines 203
Pre-WWW Search Engines 203
WWW Search Engines 203
Ask an Expert Services 204
Maximizing Search Engine Effectiveness 204
Document Code 205
The Invisible Web 205
Internet Communication 205
Electronic Mail 205
Mailing Lists and Newsgroups 205
Bulletin Board Systems 206
Chat Rooms and MUDS 206
Online Conferences 206
Libraries and the Internet 206
Libraries without Walls 206
Librarians and the Internet 207
Internet Reference Service 207Cataloging the WWW 207
Electronic Journals 207
Evaluation of Internet Content 208
Authority and Bias 208
URL Clues 208
Audience 208
Currency 209
Coverage 209
Language 209
Page Structure 209
Links 209
Source Code 209
Misinformation 209
Spoofs 209
Alternative Views 209
Help 210
Conclusion 210
Glossary 210
Cross References 210
References 210INTRODUCTION
Whether one is searching for inexpensive airline tickets,
or looking for information on corpus collosum bisection,
the Internet is an invaluable resource. Studies indicate
that students, both graduate and undergraduate, are us-
ing the Internet for research in unprecedented numbers
and in some disciplines more frequently than any con-
ventional resources (Davis & Cohen, 2001; Davis, 2002).
Faculty, scholars and other researchers are not far be-
hind (Zhang, 2001). The Nintendo generation is consis-
tently more acculturated to using online resources than
previous generations, and one can expect this trend to
continue into the foreseeable future. How did we get
here?
In July of 1945 Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office
of Scientific Research and Development, published an ar-
ticle inThe Atlanticentitled “As We May Think” (Bush,
1945). In this article, Bush envisioned a research tool
that would link researchers globally, place the contents
of libraries at a researcher’s fingertips, and monitor what
pathways of research each researcher utilized, so that
pathways could be easily replicated. The research tool
was dubbed the Memex. An interface of software, system
and hardware, the Memex was conceptualized exclusively
to accelerate and enhance research. Today, the Internet
is rapidly actualizing the conceptual Memex. Within the
past 20 years the Internet has radically altered the way
research is conducted in nearly every area of academia,
commerce, and society.
The Internet was initially created to enable comput-
ers at universities and government facilities to sharefiles, thus enabling computer scientists and researchers
to exchange and disseminate data and information over
great distances. The initial experiment, dependent on the
creation of packet switching, by the ARPAnet project,
achieved initial success on Labor Day weekend, 1969.
Since then, the primary Internet developments have
been rapid and, with the exception of electronic mail
(e-mail) and entertainment applications, primarily re-
search driven.
By 1971 there were 23 hosts connected: all universities,
government research facilities, developmental companies
(such as BBN), and independent research facilities. By
1973, the Internet was international, with a host computer
at the University College of London, England. From there
on, the growth has been quite literally explosive.
The development of research enabling and enhancing
software for the Internet has followed suit. In 1971 Ray
Tomlinson invented a piece of software that may repre-
sent the most common Internet use today—e-mail. Within
months, Lawrence Roberts, the chief scientist at ARPA,
wrote the first e-mail management program, enabling
the development of electronic lists (such as LISTSERV),
which have become a critical component of scholarly
communication and research. 1974 heralded the creation
of Telenet, the first commercial packet data service, which
opened the door for file transfer between any computers
on the network.
Early Internet researchers, primarily academics, used
these applications to share and disseminate information,
data sets, and manuscripts. Unlike snail (postal) mail or
fax, information could be instantly disseminated to all
the members of an online community of scholars, and201