______________________________________________________ GopherCON '95 ______________________________________________________ This workshop/conference will be an excellent opportunity to learn about next-generation information system technologies such as GopherVR and the IICM's Hyper-G system in an informal workshop setting. Highlights of GopherCON '95 will include new technology such as 3D user interfaces, applying spatial document clustering to searching document collections, and hypermedia technologies including the IICM's Hyper-G system (which supports Gopher, HTTP, and Hyper-G clients and hypermedia authoring tools for hypertext and video). GopherCON '95 will be a workshop-format meeting with limited attendance to promote discussion. Because attendance is limited, we suggest that you register as soon as possible. ______________________________________________________ GopherCON '95 Agenda ______________________________________________________ Friday June 9 ------------- 8:00 - 9:00 REGISTRATION 9:00 - 9:15 Introduction and welcome 9:15 - 10:30 New U of M Gopher developments: GopherVR and VRML [1] Gopher and OpenDoc [6] IICM, NCSA and Gopher collaboration [3] 10:30 - 10:45 Break 10:45 - 11:15 Document Clustering for GopherVR [4] 11:15 - 11:45 Customizing Unix Servers for 3D [7] 11:45 - 1:00 Lunch 1:00 - 2:00 GopherSurfer, AppleSearch, and GopherVR [8] 2:00 - 2:30 The Hyper-G Information System [2] 2:30 - 3:00 Break 3:00 - 3:30 The New/Improved Jughead [14] 3:30 - 4:00 Blue Skies Gopher [13] 4:00 - 4:15 Break 4:15 - ??:?? Open forum/Gopher protocol issue discussion Saturday June 10 ---------------- 9:00 - 9:30 Integrating Gopher and WWW [10] 9:30 - 10:00 Linux as a low cost Gopher/HTTP Server [12] 10:00 - 10:30 Multiple item search with Gopher/WAIS [16] 10:30 - 10:45 Break 10:45 - 11:15 Integrating Gopher into the Library Env.[15] 11:15 - 11:45 Gopher gateway Z39.50 and Isite [9] 11:45 - 1:00 Lunch 1:00 - 1:30 Defence Industry Supply Center Gopher [17] 1:30 - 2:00 Gopher searching large databases [11] 2:00 - 2:30 Screen Scraping for fun and profit [5] 2:30 - 2:45 Closing ______________________________________________________ GopherCON '95 Session Descriptions ______________________________________________________ [1]-------------- GopherVR and VRML ----------------- Next-generation user interfaces for Internet navigation will incorporate 3D scenes as both a graphical document type and as a way to visualize relationships in a collection of documents (GopherVR). The new GopherVR clients make it possible to view and navigate current Gopher servers' document and link collections as 3D scenes, and Gopher+ servers can easily give GopherVR clients hints about how to display the scene representing a Gopher directory. GopherVR opens up a new visual vocabulary for representing the relationships between items in Gopher, while preserving Gopher traditional strength in serving low-end clients with low bandwidth links. This session is an overview of the design rationale and engineering tradeoffs in the current GopherVR clients, how GopherVR hierarchies and VRML documents address complimentary problems, and future directions for GopherVR and VRML development. [2]--------------------------- The Hyper-G Information system ------------------------------ Klaus Schmaranz ) Currently, the most popular Internet information systems use distributed menus and searching (Gopher) or hypertext documents (WWW) to represent information spaces. The IICM at the Technical University in Graz, Austria has developed Hyper-G, a second generation information system which combines a structured hierarchy with hypermedia documents.Hyperlinks are supported in all document types including text, images, movies, 3D scenes and PostScript. One of the most interesting features of Hyper-G is that links between documents and directories are two-way links, so it is possible to traverse the link in either direction. This makes it easy to view the collection of all documents that point to a given directory or document (a good way of finding related documents). Two-way links also make it possible to automatically update hypertext references when a document moves; this is a problem that is not handled well by either Gopher or WWW currently. This session covers the Hyper-G system architecture, how Hyper-G clients work, and an overview of authoring hypermedia in Hyper-G to be served to Gopher, WWW, and Hyper-G clients, and will be presented by a member of the Hyper-GJdevelopment group from Graz. [3]----------------------------------------------- Update on the IICM, NCSA, and Gopher collaboration -------------------------------------------------- The Hyper-G, NCSA Mosaic, and Gopher developers recently announced a joint development effort to produce VRweb 3D VRMLJclients for use with Gopher, Hyper-G and Mosaic clients. This session is an update on the progress of this effort. [4]----------------------------- Document Clustering for GopherVR -------------------------------- One of the reasons for developing GopherVR is to make it possible to represent relationships between documents in a collection by spatially grouping the documents in a 3D scene. The is a particularly interesting technique when applied to searching and browsing a document collection. This session covers how we are clustering documents on GopherVR-aware servers, and how other search engines can use GopherVR clients to display clusters of documents. [5]------------------------------- Screen Scraping for Fun and Profit ---------------------------------- Screen scraping (harvesting information from 3270 terminal sessions) is one way to to provide an easy-to-use Gopher interface to information that is only available via a terminal-based interface. This session covers how a Unix gopher gateway was written to efficiently harvest information student grade information from 3270 terminal sessions, reformat the information, and present it via Gopher. If you have legacy systems that are not going to migrate to client/server technology anytime soon, you may want to apply these techniques to free your data without creating a shadow database system. [6]----------------------------------- Gopher and OpenDoc component documents -------------------------------------- The philosophy of the Gopher developers at the University of Minnesota has always been to develop small, modular applications, and OpenDoc's component architecture is a good match for this philosophy. This session will include an overview of OpenDoc and how we plan to integrate Gopher with OpenDoc documents. [7]------------------------------------ Customizing Unix servers for 3D clients --------------------------------------- This sessions covers how to customize an existing Unix server for GopherVR clients. You'll find out how easy it is to take an existing Unix Gopher server and have it return a +3D: attribute to specify a 3D scene. [8]----------------------------------- GopherSurfer, AppleSearch and GopherVR -------------------------------------- An update on the popular Macintosh Gopher server software, how to integrate this software with the AppleSearch full-text search engine and how to make your GopherSurfer 3D-savvy. [9]------------------------------- Gopher gateway to Z39.50 and Isite ---------------------------------- Z39.50 servers are commonly used for library online catalogs, and there has been a Gopher gateway to Z39.50 catalogs for the last year. This session covers new developments in integrating Gopher with Z39.50 and Isite. [10]---------------------- Integrating Gopher and WWW -------------------------- HTMLJpages are a popular document format, while Gopher hierarchies are fast to navigate and let you associate abstracts, alternate views, and other meta information with any type of document. This session looks at how to publish HTMLJdocuments from Gopher servers and point Gopher links at HTMLJdocuments on WWW servers to serve the widest possible community and take advantage of the strengths for both Gopher and WWW. [11]---------------------------------------------------------- Using Gopher for Structured Searching of a Very Large Database -------------------------------------------------------------- This session covers how to use FreeWais-SF and Gopher+ electronic forms to publish and make searchable (by field) a very large database. Gopher+ forms make it possible to search on fields without exposing the user to FreeWAIS-SF syntax. The database published was the Books in Print database. [12]----------------------------------------------- Champagne Tastes on a Beer Budget Linux as a Low Cost Option for a Gopher/HTTP Server --------------------------------------------------- Steven Kirby This session will discuss the University of Georgia Libraries' experience running a Gopher and HTTP server under the Linux operating system. Our server (gopher://scarlett.libs.uga.edu) has been in production for over a year and has served over a quarter of a million transaction without a hitch, despite the fact that the machine our Gopher server runs on is a lowly 386DX-40 mhz system with 8 megabytes of memory and a 420 Mbyte IDE hard disk. This session will address a number of issues relating to running a Gopher server under Linux, including hardware options, obtaining and installing Linux, and selecting Gopher server software that is appropriate to a particular site's needs. This session will be of interest to persons and organizations who prefer the stability and functionality of a Unix-based Gopher server, but whose budgets might not be able to accommodate a workstation or server to run a commercial variant of