Libraries and the National Research and Education Network This file contains the text of six short pieces and a longer discussion paper prepared for the American Library Association confernce in June 1990. They include perspectives from different types of libraries: "Developing the Information Superhighway" by Edwin Brownrigg "A Public Library Perspective" by Lois Kershner "The National Research and Education Network For Special Libraries" by Steve Cisler "Electronic Networking at Davis Senior High School" by Janet Meizel "Free-neting" by T.M. Grundner "Electronic Networking for California State and Public Libraries" by Gary Strong, Kathy Hudson, and John Jewell Finally, there is a piece by Dr. Vinton Cerf of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives entitled "Thoughts on the National Research and Education Network " that appeared in July 1990 as RFC 1167 for the Internet community. These papers plus a different one by Dr. Cerf, and other useful documents appear in the LITA publication LIBRARY PERSPECTIVES ON NREN, edited by Carol A. Parkhurst. (ISBN 0-8389-7477-5) Buy it from LITA Publications, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60602. Please cite this publication if you re-distribute all or part of this collection. If you have any comments about this electronic document , please contact Steve Cisler, Apple Library, Apple Computer, Inc. (sac@apple.com). ---- Developing the Information Superhighway Issues for Libraries Edwin Brownrigg, Ph.D. The Memex Research Institute This paper was commissioned by the Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association, to provide a basis for discussion of library participation in current efforts to establish a national telecommunications "superhighway". The paper outlines the convergence of library automation and educational networking, and relates the importance of recent trends to future library service. The impact of the existing higher education network (Internet) and the proposed National Research and Education Network (NREN) on library service is explored. Public policy issues are defined, including the availability of resources, access to the resources, definition and adherence to standards, and boundary problems. To support the needed debate on public policy issues, ten principles for operation of publicly supported networking, within and beyond the NREN, are proposed. We live in an era of change in modes of communication[1] . At the root of our social changes, and our legal reactions to them, is a key technological change: communication, other than face-to-face, is becoming overwhelmingly electronic. Not only is electronic communication growing faster than communication through the traditional medium of print, but also the convergence of the modes of delivery (print, common carriage, and broadcasting) is bringing newspapers, journals, and books to the threshold of digital electronic communication. By the late 1970s, broadcasting had grown to the point where, on the average, Americans consumed four times as many words electronically as they read in print[2] . Yet, at the same time, publication of printed material was growing annually at a rate of five percent. Then through the 1980s, academics and business people came to embrace electronic mail and telefacsimile through common carriers as electro- typographic means of personal expression. Along the arrow of time of human communications, our era is a mere speck compared to the preceding stretches. The arrow began with a long tail of communication by sound. That was followed by a stretch of communication by writing, and then by a stub of communication by print. At the tip of the arrow is the speck of our era of electronic communication. Understandably, our laws and public policies look back on the arrow of time for past analogies as we try to move ahead. From time to time it makes sense to revisit aging laws applied to then "new" communication modes of the past. The advent of a national network for research and education is such an occasion, and has prompted the commissioning of this work. In the past our various modes of communication were separate from each other, and the enterprises built upon them similarly distinct. Newspaper publishers and phonograph record producers, for example, did not get in each other's way. But today the historically separate modes of communication are converging due to the adroitness of digital electronics. Voice, music, text, images, motion video, numerical data, and computer programs, are all in the domain of digital electronics. By means of digital electronics they can all be created, collected, organized, distributed, reorganized, copied, displayed or performed. These activities for handling the various modes of communication are library functions. And, most significantly, all of these heretofore separate modes of communication can now play across the same electronic network. There can be little wonder at the confusion reflected both in our reactive laws for new communications technologies, and in the public policies for future priorities, practices, and rights in communication. The Convergence of Libraries and Networking The library profession stepped toward the threshold of digital electronic communication by perfecting the MARC cataloging communication standard over twenty years ago. At almost the same time, on the other side of Washington, D.C., plans for the ARPANET were developing. A decade later, and without precedent, the Division of Library Automation at the University of California created subnet 31 of the ARPA Internet in order to make available nationwide, MARC-based bibliographic data from the MELVYLt online union catalog. Now a growing number of library catalogs are appearing on the same nationwide network (the Internet) that has come to form the basis for the proposed National Research and Education Network (NREN). There is good reason that libraries should connect to the NREN. Common to those in the professions of computing, communications, and libraries has been the experience that when communities of people are surveyed as to how they would use an electronic network were one provided to them, the most frequent response (usually greater than the others combined) is: I would access library services. But librarians, who have traditionally dealt primarily with the separate mode of print, may not have been fully prepared for the implications of such a perception on the part of the patron/user. Nonetheless, the NREN is soon likely to become real after twenty years of tough decisions, public funding, institutional funding, and experimentation at campuses, laboratories, computer centers, research institutes, archives, and libraries. It falls to this generation of librarians to relate library services to network users' expectations. The National Research and Education Network (NREN) What is now being proposed under the name "National Research and Education Network" started in 1969 as an experiment under the sponsorship of the United States Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an agency of the Department of Defense. The intent was to connect a small number of heterogeneous and geographically dispersed computers for the purpose of gaining experience in techniques for providing remote login access from one computer to another or through a series of intermediate computers. The first practical application of the experiment, although not originally a planned one, was electronic mail. The core of the design of the experiment was a small computer that would act as a switch to route packets of data back and forth among their sources and destinations. The model for the design was similar to the way the telephone network operates. Each computer was like a telephone connected to a local switch from which all other computers could be contacted. In addition, significant improvements over the telephone model were introduced into the ARPANET packet switching scheme. Since one of the primary goals of the network architecture was overall network survivability, the packet switches were designed to switch from one circuit to another in the event that any given circuit became congested or was interrupted. Another novelty was the introduction of a suite of protocols that could be programmed into computers connected to the ARPANET. These protocols would make it possible to transmit packets over a network composed of diverse physical media and circuits of different bit rates. By the 1980s, these protocols had evolved and allowed multiple and diverse networks to be connected to each other and thus to provide end-to-end service across many different networks. These mature protocols were called Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Perhaps the single most important realization of the ARPANET by the mid-1970s was that a community of different computers and operating systems could communicate with each other. At first the ARPANET grew slowly, but in the 1970s it added one new computer every twenty days. By the early 1980s the ARPANET was acquiring an increasing number of military sites, and it became clear that for security purposes there would have to be a split between research and military use. Thus MILNET (the military network) was created and diverged from ARPANET. This was a tribute to the success of the ARPANET, but it also called into question how ARPANET's future would be funded, once the Defense Department had gone its separate networking way. After the split, the name "Internet" entered the community's vocabulary for the network referent. Grave concerns grew over the funding issue, and various schemes were advanced for "managing" the Internet. Fortunately for the Internet community, in the early 1980s the National Science Foundation (NSF) had elevated supercomputing to a national science priority. Five supercomputer centers were established around the United States, and NSF funded further growth and expansion of the Internet as a means of enabling users remote from any of the five supercomputing sites to have access to supercomputing. The challenge then was to increase dramatically the speed of the network from a maximum speed of 56 kilobits per second to 1.5 megabits per second. Many in the community felt that this 28-fold increase in network speed would defeat the TCP/IP protocols, but this proved false, and now some NREN proponents are lobbying for speeds from 3 to 5 gigabits per second by the year 2000. If such speeds are realized, then NREN will be the de facto "information highway" envisioned by Senator Albert Gore, Jr. Two chief issues arise from the information highway scenario. First, which information services will use the NREN? Second, how will the NREN be financed? As of March 1990 these issues were still open. At the National Net'90 Conference, the formation of the Coalition for Networked Information was announced. Sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), EDUCOM, and CAUSE, the Coalition is setting an agenda from which to discuss these two major issues and the many others that will arise in developing the NREN. Kenneth M. King, president of EDUCOM, originally described his vision of a networked scholarly community on December 8, 1988, at a joint meeting of the Library of Congress Network Advisory Committee and the EDUCOM Networking and Telecommunications Task Force. His vision embodied four objectives: --Connect every scholar in the world to every other scholar and thus reduce the barriers to scholarly interaction of space, time, and cultures. --Connect to the network all important information sources, specialized instruments, and computing resources worth sharing. --Build databases that are collaboratively and dynamically maintained that contain all that is known on a particular subject. --Create a knowledge management system on the network that will enable scholars to navigate through these resources in a standard, intuitive, and consistent way. The latter two objectives are fundamental library functions and the second (connecting to the network all important information sources) could be a library function in the future. Funding for the NREN The Coalition for the National Research and Education Network (not to be confused with the ARL/EDUCOM/CAUSE Coalition above) was formed to articulate the network challenge, to describe the NREN's benefits and beneficiaries, to propose a plan for the NREN's growth, to focus the issue of its funding and by whom, and to propose next steps. In its 1989 brochure entitled NREN: The National Research and Education Network the Coalition proposes that ... the Network will give researchers and students at colleges of all sizes -- and at large and small companies -- in every state access to the same: --high performance computing tools --data banks --supercomputers --libraries --specialized research facilities --educational technology that are presently available to only a few large universities and laboratories that can afford them. >From this one can infer that the proponents of the NREN have a pluralistic approach. The Coalition for the NREN declares that federal funding is critically needed to: --stimulate the additional investments needed at the local and regional level; and --provide an infrastructure that will bring the benefits of those local and regional investments to the entire nation. There can be little doubt that there are economic advantages in building electronic networks, because campus after campus, and region after region, have done so. A proposal for $400 million for the NREN is currently before Congress as an initial request for 1991 through 1995. The Coalition for the NREN proposes that campuses continue to contribute to the cost of building local networks that would attach to the NREN, and that telecommunications companies contribute to the research and development of technologies that would enhance the speed and quality of services on the NREN. One of the basic problems with the issue of funding the NREN is that most of the organizations connected to the Internet currently pay for the leased telecommunications circuits that link them to an Internet gateway. To add to the confusion, some of the long high-speed circuits in the Internet are underwritten by their common carriers. These practices may give rise to the appearance that, in large part, the proposed NREN would start as self-funding and, thus, not be in need of public support. The EDUCOM Networking and Telecommunications Task Force (NTTF) addresses this perception and reports in its Policy Paper revised March 1990 that "[t]he federal government, through its research sponsoring agencies, has historically been the major source of funding for inter-campus network facilities, with the current level estimated at $50 million per year." The issue of cost recovery is also addressed in the EDUCOM NTTF Policy Paper that concludes: "Until a useful and detailed accounting procedure is available, the present ... fixed fee basis is considered a fair method of financing the network." In addition to new federal policies, new federal dollars likely will be required to sustain a national network that will meet the needs of American education and research. Because the amount of new federal dollars available to the NREN will be directly proportional to supportive votes from the citizenry, it may be a fitting strategy to introduce library and information services into the NREN proposal, as they traditionally have enjoyed public tax support at the local and state levels. In addition, since 1966, federal library programs have promoted interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing among all types of libraries through library networks operating across geographic and political boundaries. In order to achieve the NREN's vision and realize its goals through new policies and new public funding, interested parties need to be clear on these issues (whose resolutions are beyond this paper's scope): --the domain in which the policy operates --availability of resources --organization of access to the resources --establishment and adherence to standard practices --problems at NREN's boundaries NREN Policy and Governance Governance is perhaps the most daunting aspect of the NREN. During its incarnation as the ARPANET, there was no doubt that the Defense Communication Agency was the maker and enforcer of policy for the network. After the ARPANET/MILNET split, the Internet community was left with a loosely organized community of users whose interrelationships were informal. As a result, different regional networks within the Internet have different policies; different backbone agencies have different policies. NSF has a policy. The Federation of American Research Networks (FARNET) recently issued a usage policy statement. These all differ in some respects. There are several special interest groups involving themselves in the discussion of policy for the NREN. These range from members of Congress to university administrators, computer center directors, common carrier executives, and librarians. In addition, publishers are asking for a role in developing a national digital library. A March 15, 1990, press release from the Association of American Publishers, Inc. (AAP) quotes Timothy B. King, vice president of John Wiley & Son as testifying on behalf of AAP to a subcommittee on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on H.R. 3131 that the best way of protecting scientific publishers' copyright and literature "is to involve us from the beginning," as a "valuable source of information for the network's designers and an active participant in the development of its information infrastructure." Privacy How will network security be achieved? Security violations of the Internet are known to have taken place. For the library profession, one issue will be how to achieve a balance between open access and privacy/security? Assuming a resolution of this issue, then, with the cooperation of users, basic information about collection use could be gathered and analyzed. Such data could be valuable for cooperative collection development. Potential NREN Resources The agglutination of resources within the Internet is truly impressive. The number of computers connected to the network is in the tens of thousands, and is perhaps in the hundreds of thousands when unknown numbers of personal computers on local networks are taken into account. The major applications among these devices have been electronic mail and other forms of file sharing. Now there are supercomputers on the network, and their services are highly rationed. However, what the community now appears to want in growing demand is more library-like services. This demand represents an evolutionary step beyond electronic information provision taking place within libraries today. Library-like services are different from traditional library services. Such services reduce to electronics and can emanate remotely from the library. Online catalog and other database access has already begun. So, the challenge for traditional librarians is to readjust further the professional focus from communication primarily by print to communication in significant part by electronics. Library Online Catalogs on the Proposed NREN Traditionally, libraries have tightly controlled access by patrons. The methods have been straightforward: open or close the library building's doors, open or close the stacks, adjudicate and enforce book circulation, develop the collection as functions of perceived usership and budget limitations, and provide some form of bibliography to users. Clearly, as a result of activity on the Internet, users' expectations towards libraries are changing. Although the percentage of libraries whose online catalogs are available on the Internet is small, the implications are great. The most significant implication is that connecting an online catalog to a national network effectively begs the question of open access to everyone. So far, open access has been the policy of the pioneering libraries who have connected to the Internet. Standards Practices Within the proposed NREN ARPANET, the Internet, and now the proposed NREN, as manifestations of the same development, share a history of over twenty years. That only a handful of libraries have incorporated the network into their operations suggests that the continuing convergence of networking and library practices may take a long time. For example, in the name of sound business practices some cataloging utilities continue not to use the Internet, while some vendors of library automation systems have acknowledged the importance of networking protocols. The issue here is not that standards for libraries' use of the proposed NREN do not exist. To the contrary, communications standards abound within the library community. The NISO Z.39 protocols have been designed to work with the lower layers of the OSI protocols. Arguably, the library profession is a relatively well prepared group to join the Internet community with respect to standards. The issue is that the Internet community does not yet run the OSI protocols, and, therefore, the library profession per force will be involved in a migration from TCP/IP to OSI (Open System Interconnect) on the Internet. Problems at NREN's Boundaries There are many who would cite the Internet as being a good example of bad management. At the same time, most of those same people are members of institutions connected in one way or another to the Internet, and many of them use it on a regular basis, if only to exchange electronic mail. For example, defining the line of demarcation between research and education is one of the management problems with the proposed NREN. It arises because of the formal and informal hierarchies within the Internet with respect to both its use and content. As long as priorities are clear, the EDUCOM NTTF approach, to be inclusive rather than exclusive, appears to prevail, provided that it does not erode the value of the network for the very highest quality of research. Another common attitude toward the Internet has been that it should not carry commercial traffic, although this is changing. This proscription would impede libraries from using the proposed NREN to its fullest potential. The dichotomy has been that the proponents of the NREN have focused mainly on themes of universal access by everyone to everything in the research and education community. For libraries, universal accessibility would be meaningless without published works. Published works are commercial property. Published works comprise the main content of libraries. Copyright law prohibits unlicensed use of published works across a network, as such use would be an infringement of the copyright holders' display rights. There is a fundamental problem for libraries in using the proposed NREN as the carrier for electronic library services without a resolution of the issue of commercial traffic. A solution to the separate problem of how copyright through the NREN could be handled is addressed in principle TEN below. The norms of use of the proposed NREN arise not out of law, but out of convention. The resolution of the issue of commercial traffic over the proposed NREN could be an opportunity for libraries to meaningfully influence NREN's countenance and at the same time test the copyright arrangement among publishers, libraries, and the research and education community. Public Policy Issues for Libraries Americans today enjoy virtually universal access to the common carrier services of mail, telegraph, and telephone. The same is true for the broadcast services of radio and television. While these services have been universal, the amount and type of content have been limited. Normal telephone service is limited to two-way voice communication. The analog-to-digital conversion of telephone service is limited to 9600 bits per second, roughly the speed at which telegrams have traveled. Broadcast access, though of relatively high capacity in the case of television, is usually only one-way. As access to computing on campuses has approached universality over the last two decades, the inadequacies of common carrier and broadcasting services have been overcome with local and wide-area networks. Advances in campus networks and regional networks have paralleled those of the national network, but to date, there has been an absence of counterpart private sector services. This suggests the viability of a "public good" approach to developing America's information highway, similar to our "public good" approaches to dealing with goods such as the environment and the electromagnetic spectrum. Using radio spectrum to extend the network to rural campuses is an example of this approach (and is expanded in principle NINE below). It is the same public good approach from which the interstate highway system evolved. If the NREN is developed as a public good according to the principles listed below, then Americans could access printed information converted to or created in electronic form and delivered via the NREN through their local libraries. Today a local call from home via common carrier to the local library at 9600 bits per second could extend service from the library into the home. If in the future the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules change, as per principle NINE below, then a high-speed, shared-channel connection between the home and the local library would be feasible. With this policy template in mind, a set of principles is hereby put forward for consideration with respect to the NREN. There is a rich scholarship on public policy within America from which to draw to develop such principles. A fitting culmination of such scholarship rests with the late Ithiel de Sola Pool, who in his work, Technologies of Freedom (1983), idealized a network of which the NREN is suggestive. There he framed a set of ideal principles that are adapted here for the proposed National Research and Education Network. Ten Suggested Principles for a National Research and Education Network The FIRST principle is that the First Amendment apply to all media in the NREN, that is, to the function of communication, not to the medium of communication[3]. That "Congress shall make no law ... abridging freedom of speech or of the press" must apply to communication by digital electronics within the NREN equally as to communication by printing in education and research. The SECOND principle, following from the FIRST, is that through the NREN anyone may publish at will, with no prior restraint, no licensing, no taxation, and no scrutiny of content by any party[4]. The THIRD principle is that enforcement of the laws and policies of the NREN be after the fact, not by prior review[5]. The FOURTH principle is that the NREN should be enabled as a free market. If it fails as a free market and, therefore, needs to be monopolistic, then apply common carrier regulation rather than direct regulation or public ownership[6]. The FIFTH principle is that of universal interconnection (implying adherence to the standards [7]of TCP/IP as they evolve to those of OSI) and to a firm recognition of the basic right to interconnect. The EDUCOM NTTF has proposed to bound "universal interconnection" within a community composed of universities, government research labs, industrial research labs, national databases, and libraries, as per its NREN brochure. The SIXTH principle would oblige users, both institutional and individual, to disclose their amount of use[8]of the NREN. This is essential for monitoring and for planning network performance. The SEVENTH principle is that government and common carriers should be blind to circuit use. What the NREN is used for and how it is used are not their concerns[9] The EIGHTH principle is that bottlenecks should not be used as a rationale to extend control[10]. As bottlenecks occur, the NREN participants should be left alone to eliminate them by whatever pluralistic process is available, or to live with the consequences of not doing so. The TCP/IP protocols from which the NREN protocols have evolved defy control in the classical management sense, and rest, rather, on the philosophically pluralistic notions of convention, cooperation, interoperability, and redundancy. The NINTH principle is that regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum for education and research should be separated from regulation extant for interstate commerce[11]. In particular, there remain vast interstices in the rural parts of the NREN that threaten to leave divided the communities of research and education into groups of "haves" and "have-nots." This latter group of "have-nots" is a population of "lone users" who remain unconnected, or inadequately connected, to the NREN. A publicly funded study needs to be done of the causes and cures of the problem, embodied in Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations: Telecommunication, that limits library access to communications bandwidth. The study must result in an appropriate and effective rules change process within the FCC that, in turn, would enable re-regulation of spectrum that the FCC has already generously set aside for education. The outcome should be a timely use for the NREN of a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, a public good, for library services, a public good, for which precedent exists. The TENTH principle is that intellectual property must be recognized in the NREN. This means that copyright enforcement and royalty distribution must be adapted[12]to the NREN. Perhaps a recasting of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) or some other remedy is in order, but failing this principle will doom the NREN as a publishing medium. It was the scholarly community that created information publishers, and it has been the published work that libraries collect, organize, preserve and disseminate. A new communications medium must accommodate these traditions and relationships for publishers to accept it. Future Prospects for Libraries and the NREN Already in a spirit of cooperation for which the Internet was intended, library users and librarians have discovered benefits from connecting online public access catalogs to the Internet. During the 1980s the Linked Systems Protocol standard evolved and is now ready to be used to allow libraries to share cataloging information with relative ease. Privately funded research continues with LSP (Linked Systems Protocol, NISO Z39.50). Other types of information resources expected to be available on the NREN are demonstrated by the following projects reported in the Proposal for an ARL/CAUSE/EDUCOM Coalition for Networked Information. --The Medieval Early Modern Data Bank (MEMDB), created by scholars at Rutgers University and made accessible electronically by The Research Libraries Group (RLG) --Research in Progress (an RLG/RLIN Special Data Base), a file of entries and abstracts of journal articles accepted by but not yet published in several journals indexed by the Modern Language Association, as well as a number of women's studies journals --A publishing project currently underway at Johns Hopkins University Medical Library in which a database of research findings is available for access by readers, students, and critics who respond directly via electronic mail to the author --The Geographic Reference Information Network (proposed by RLG), a digitized data file of satellite imagery and geographic information developed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, working with a number of agencies including the National Center for Geographic Information and NASA One of the most profound consequences of the NREN for librarians, library users, and the general education and research community is the "virtual library." As described by Richard Goodram[13] . The most complex information element within any University is the library system. As such it demands special analysis and provides the opportunities for substantial benefits from improvements in its operation. ... The virtual library [combines] an on-site collection of current and heavily used materials, in both print and electronic form, with an electronic network which provides access to, and delivery from, external information sources, library and commercial, worldwide. The design goal for the user is to create the effect of an indefinitely large collection through the electronic access and delivery of materials as needed rather than by expending staff and acquisition funds in an attempt to anticipate future demands for a wide range of retrospective materials and peripheral publications. Discussions are under way to create a consortium of public libraries which would use the NREN to connect their online catalogs. The purpose of this cooperation would be to enable the "universal borrowing card" so that library users in America's mobile society could move from public library to public library and use each as if it were the same library. Collections so united would be richer and more accessible than that of the Library of Congress. Finally, if the public policies and laws of the NREN are framed as proposed above, then a currently reluctant publishing sector might more readily strive and cooperate with libraries to perfect the standards still lacking in library practices to describe the composition of editions of works published as digital electronic artifacts. In that way such works could be distributed or copied across the NREN and the copyright owner could receive a fair royalty. Once perfected, such publishing practices should achieve new economies and profits, on the basis that the kinetic energy used in electronic publishing is several orders of magnitude less than that of print publishing. New standards such as those discussed herein could then be harnessed by governmental agencies for internal communications as well as for communications with the citizens participating in research and education, including citizens who use public libraries. Conclusion Adoption of the above proposed ten principles into law and public policy is in significant parts without precedent in American communications. In the beginning, the style of practice of librarianship in America, too, was without precedent, but was rooted in a philosophy of pluralism consistent with the principles suggested herein. References [1]Communications is from the latin communicare, meaning "to make common." With the greek prefix tele, meaning "distant", telecommunications means "to make common at a distance." [2]Ithiel de Sola Pool. Technologies of Freedom (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1984), p. 21. [3]Ibid., p.235 note 32. [4]Ibid., p.246. [5]Ibid. [6]Ibid. [7]Ibid. [8]Ibid., p.248-9. [9]Ibid. [10]Ibid. [11]Ibid., p.249. [12] Edwin Brownrigg with Brett Butler. Cooperative Library Networks: Changing the Rules (Memex Research Institute White Paper "1. California State University, Chico, 1990), p.10. [13]Richard J. Goodram. The Virtual Library: Collections on Demand (Memex Research Institute White Paper "2. California State University, Chico, 1990), p.1. ___________________ The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author. Dr. Edwin Brownrigg is director of research, The Memex Research Institute, 422 Bonita Avenue, Roseville, CA 95678. ----- NREN For Special Libraries by Steve Cisler, Apple Computer Library This brief paper discusses how the technical library at Apple Computer, Inc. is using the existing web of electronic networks and how an expanded broadband network might be used by this and other special libraries. The Apple Library's mission is to help Apple employees obtain the information they need in a timely manner. Because the company's prime goal is to develop and sell innovative computers and related products, the library and its users place a premium on the speed of delivery of the information and its relevance to the researcher. That means we will use any means we can to communicate with the employee and to find the information. This includes face-to-face reference interviews, fax, phone, and extensive use of electronic mail. Much of our internal business is conducted on a variety of LAN-based Email systems, all of which are connected to AppleLink, an electronic mail, databank, and bulletin board system for use by employees, dealers, customers, and consultants around the world. To obtain the information we rely on book jobbers, information brokers, and of course, commercial services such as Dialog, Dow Jones, and Mead. We access the latter via value-added packet switching networks. Many engineers within Apple also use the Internet, the network of networks that will serve as the basis for the proposed National Research and Education Network. Apple's Engineering Computer Operations is a commercial member of BARNNet, a regional network that is part of the Internet. We have wide bandwidth networks within the company; the existing Internet is using a backbone network where the speed will be increasing from 1.56 megabits per second to 45 megabits per second in 1990. That is 18,750 times as fast as a 2400 baud connection. Researchers at distant Apple sites and in universities and government organizations keep in touch with their colleagues in Cupertino, California, and are able to quickly transfer large files between one part of the U.S. and Cupertino.There are mail links between AppleLink and the Internet, so that Apple engineers can send requests to the library any way they wish. Until recently, only two librarians have had Internet accounts, but with the increased awareness of library resources and discussion groups available through the Internet (and from BITNET), more than half the staff now uses apple.com, the computer that connects to the Internet. As more people begin to use electronic mail the Internet accounts are proving to have better connectivity than any other. At present we can exchange mail with researchers, librarians, and educators on BITNET, CompuServe, The WELL, Fidonet, FredNet, ALANET, UUCP--the Unix network, and various networks in Asia and Europe. There is no direct charge for connect time or packets of data transmitted, as there would be on Dialog or ALANET. Most special libraries may not believe they need this sort of connectivity with so many other librarians or institutions. Admittedly, the addressing schemes are complex, and the list of bibliographic and database resources on the Internet is just being compiled. Finding useful information is for pioneers and explorers and may frustrate librarians used to having reliable printed directories or running a macro that immediately connects to Dialog and runs a search on Medline or Computer Database. When the NREN becomes a reality, either through legislation or some other governmental involvement, the Internet will grow and change. The changes will result from an increase in bandwidth, an increase in member organizations (and membership may not even be the correct term if NREN becomes more of a commercial than a cooperative, government funded enterprise), and a diversity in services and users that is not present on the Internet in mid-1990. At present, the types of special libraries using this network are limited to some governmental organizations and libraries in computer manufacturing and software development firms as well as telecommunications companies. Various commercial vendors of network connectivity are appearing on the scene including Performance Systems International, Inc, formed with part of the technical staff from NYSERNet in New York state, which is selling accounts to various commercial firms. Undoubtedly, some of those special libraries will come on line as the benefits become more apparent. I predict that more special libraries will find NREN to be worth supporting, after it is established and new services are offered for a fee. At present Research Libraries Group, Colorado Alliance for Research Libraries, and Clarinet Software are about the only ones selling information to Internet users. All of it is currently textual information, but high data rates will make possible the transmission of images of journal articles, patents, sound and video clips, and large files from satellite data collection archives and engineering design and medical image databases. Because the legislation emphasizes the eventual commercialization of the NREN, I am sure there will be many old and new firms that will do business online with special, academic, school, and public libraries. Another benefit of this network, if it is eventually used by many libraries, will be the ability of distant libraries to collaborate on projects, of professional associations to preplan annual conferences in ways that fax and phone do not allow. Video conferencing may be used to some extent but won't replace the face-to-face meetings. What will happen is that participants will exchange a great deal more information prior to meeting, and virtual communities of members who live far from each other will grow stronger. The opinions expressed in this short essay are mine; Apple Computer, Inc. may not agree with all of them. Comments or questions may be sent to Steve Cisler, Apple Computer Library, 10381 Bandley Drive, MS: 8C, Cupertino, California 95014. (408) 974-3258. Internet address: sac@apple.com. ---- Data Networks and the Academic Library Craig A. Summerhill Washington State University Background In November 1987, the National Science Foundation provided funding to be managed by the Merit Computer Network (Michigan) over a five year period, in cooperation IBM and MCI, to re-engineer and expand the backbone of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). Since July 1988, data traffic on the network has increased approximately twenty percent per month. Such profound growth illustrates the fact that higher education in the United States is entering a new age of mass communication and data transfer, and nowhere on American campuses are the shock waves being felt more fully than in the library. Currently, there are over 100,000 computers linked to the NSFNET. Within ten years, there will be 500,000. The number of active users on the network is projected to increase from the current one million to four-to-six million users by the turn of the century. Such growth offers clear justification for the proposed National Research and Education Network (NREN) -- a "data superhighway" to be built largely around the NSFNET infrastructure. Connecting Campus Networks Nearly all colleges and universities in the United States provide some level of access to the many converging data networks such as BITNET, CSNET, Internet, and the NSFNET. The network user in the academic world is a faculty member, an administrator, a member of the support staff, or most importantly -- a student. National networking is challenging professors to realize that the classroom experience is no longer confined to the space and time between the classroom walls. Similarly, the age of the academic "library without walls" is dawning, not of its own volition, but driven largely by forces external to libraries. Electronic communication with other students, professors, researchers, and even businessmen is having a profound impact on traditional methods of information gathering and dissemination in the academic community. Information which formerly took months to publish in traditional print formats can currently be distributed to a growing worldwide audience in a few short hours. For example, following the recent and much celebrated announcement of a successful cold-fusion experiment at the University of Utah, interested physicists were sharing vital data related to the experiment via a distributed mailing list within days of the announcement. The essence of the interpersonal communication process is being shaken at its foundation as a result of electronic communication. The electronic transmission of text allows many people to converse at their leisure. Unlike a telephone call, textual messages sent on Monday can be answered on Tuesday with no disruption in the flow of the conversation. Because this process does not require the shared temporal periods necessary for speech (i.e. telephone calls), this process is termed "non real-time communication." Ironically, the hallmark of libraries, namely the book, had a similar effect upon societal communication in the Western world following the advent of moveable type. Network Services Electronic distribution of text is simply one method in which data can be disseminated via the network. Any information stored in binary can be transferred as a digital signal over the network. Voice, music, still image graphics, and full motion video, can all be transmitted, provided sufficient data capacity (termed bandwidth) exists to move the signal. Given digital technology, a professor at MIT could store a lecture which includes videotape footage, color images (formerly slides or transparencies), and the text of a homework assignment. Transmitted across the network, the lecture could be viewed concurrently at UC Berkeley, or recorded in California and retransmitted at a later date. Other benefits the academic community derives from national networking include the cost-sharing of expensive scientific instruments and immediate access to widely dispersed databases. Geographically isolated researchers can share equipment by either transmitting data to the equipment for processing, or logging onto another computer across the network. This prevents two institutions from making similar investments to operate the same equipment. Thus astronomers at MIT and at UC Berkeley can each analyze data from the Hubble Space Telescope across the network by pooling their resources. Any data generated as a result of research and experimentation is increasingly being stored for statistical processing by computers. The provision of an open systems computing model guarantees that all users can utilize this data regardless of their physical location on the network. Future Trends: The Academic Library Challenge The provision of information services on the network, chiefly through access to widely dispersed databases, poses the greatest challenge to the academic library community. Organizing and classifying large bodies of electronic data into information formats valuable to the user demands resources that exceed those available to most academic libraries. To date, the focal point of automated library systems has been to provide bibliographic information, but academic users are increasingly demanding full text and multi-media information resources which exceed the data processing capabilities of these systems. The provision of personalized information services in a non real-time environment is also challenging the basis of traditional library services. Today, America is clearly the world leader in networking technology. To keep this edge in the next decade, and the coming century, the library must move beyond the confining walls of the building. Academic librarians must provide both vocal support for national networks such as the NREN, and educated leadership in the development of data networks which provide information services to all segments of society, all types of organizations, and all different genres of libraries. _____________________ Craig A. Summerhill is assistant systems librarian at Washington State University, and is currently chair of the Library and Information Technology Association's Telecommunications Interest Group. ---- Electronic Networking at Davis Senior High School Janet Meizel Davis Senior High School, Davis, California In the immediate future, much of our research and communication will be handled by computer-based telecommunications. This has created new opportunities for the business world and new problems for those in the field of education who must provide students with the appropriate skills to use in that world. The necessary skills should be taught to high school students before they enter the job market, but programs to accomplish this task are expensive and equipment available to students is often out of date. A unique partnership was formed in the K-12 educational arena to try to resolve this problem. Under the auspices of a grant from Pacific Bell and assistance from the Internet Federation, Davis (Calif.) Senior High School (DSHS) and the University of California, Davis (UCD) have set up what is believed to be the first data link from a K-12 school to a major university in the state of California. This data link connects DSHS's computer lab to UCD's computer network and affords access to a wide variety of data available through UCD's Internet connection. It has allowed the high school to expand its computer studies curriculum, thus opening new horizons for students interested in computer applications and research. It is also providing opportunities for innovative teaching and work methods for students and faculty in all the other departments at DSHS. Pacific Bell's intention is to help the University of California system and the State University system to fulfill their commitments to the community by using telecommunications to support the educational process at elementary, junior high and high schools. Their vision of the future includes "distance learning" (learning in remote classrooms linked to larger schools or universities), use of electronic messaging systems by parents and school personnel as well as students, and increased opportunities for multilingual students, those with disabilities and those who need alternate approaches. The University of California, Davis is heavily involved in computer network research and actively participates in international network standards committees. Computer networks are becoming an increasingly important utility, particularly in the academic and research communities. UCD is currently connected to all three of the major international networks that are used for educational and research information exchange, plus BARRNet (Bay Area Regional Research Network) and NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network). Davis Senior High School in Davis, California, is the largest campus in the Davis Joint Unified School District, with an enrollment of over 1,100 students. It is a comprehensive high school. The school district has strong community support, but limited resources. A 56 kilobit per second Advanced Digital Network (ADN) circuit is the data link from Davis Senior High School to the UC Davis campus. This service provides high quality digital transmission as well as variable data speeds, error detection, and flexible expansion for growth. Lines have been set from the present (12 computer) network and its server to the library and those computers are connected to the local network. Future plans include lines out to classrooms in anticipation of placement of computers in these areas. Apple Corporation has provided the high school with a new network server (a Macintosh IICX) with additional hardware and software to support the local area network. They have also provided computers for additional classroom stations and two CD-ROM players. The first two groups of teachers and students have been trained, and the reception has been enthusiastic. The teachers are so enthusiastic that some of them have devoted one of their vacation days during winter break to a workshop to familiarize themselves with network use. A significant number of students and teachers are using MELVYLt for library research assistance. Several classes have used the information stored on Compact Disc (CD) databases for classroom reports. Because of the ease of use (and perhaps the novelty), students constantly browse through the CDs we now own (a history database, a database with information on various countries, a CD containing public domain software and several CDs containing programming information). Teachers are using the network to do research and use electronic mail systems. They can communicate with other teachers and authorities in specialized fields, and use outside databases as sources of new information for classroom support. One teacher, Cliff Simes, has already begun his own search for resources and has found an additional bulletin board to use--one devoted to teachers in the Vocational Education field (CAVIX). Teachers are able to communicate with professional organizations over Internet (including the Modern Language Association, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Association of Teachers of French, American Association of Teachers of German, American Association of Teachers of Mathematics, etc.). They can also download public domain software from database software collections to support instruction and aid in classroom management. Both students and teachers have access to UCD's newsgroups, which provide articles and opportunities for discussion of many subjects, ranging from "Applications of Artificial Intelligence to Education" to postings for many types of computers, general news, and a variety of cultural and academic topics. It is planned that there will be a small "talk area" set aside specifically for topics initiated by teachers at DSHS (for example, questions open for discussion in the various foreign languages taught at the school). Other plans include possible correspondence with students in other countries and in other parts of the United States. Some students have already joined the "talk groups" on UCD's network and have read and responded to articles on topics from aeronautics and physics to discussions of the Middle East, "C" language for the computer and recent political events. One of the chief attractions of this type of communication is that the students are seen as equal participants in the communication process, not as "kids" playing with the computers. Their comments must be carefully thought out and are given equal weight with messages from the other members of the discussion. This promotes a form of "electronic democracy," one of the themes in which Pacific Bell has shown strong interest. Beginning in September 1990, teachers and students will use the network for immediate classroom access to information to be used in discussions and projects (e.g. backup statistics, news items, electronic mail to other classes). They will use network support in classroom discussions and to support individual or small-group cooperative work in classroom settings. Have there been any problems? Not yet. Joan Gargano and Russell Hobby of UCD have provided the high school with a guide to network etiquette and guides for the many facets of telecommunications. Staff at the UC Davis library have provided us with guides to MELVYLt. Everyone at the school who has access to the network has read the documents and has promised to follow the guidelines. They know that even with the grant and expertise from Pacific Bell, the machines from Apple, and the help from the Internet Federation and UCD, responsibility for the success of this project rests with the students and faculty at the high school. _______________________ Janet Meizel is a teacher at Davis Senior High School, Davis, California, and a lecturer at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine; Internet: jemeizel@ucdavis.edu. ----- "Free-neting" The Development of Free, Public Access Community Computer Systems T.M. Grundner, Ed.D National Public Telecomputing Network For the past 20 years futurists have been making a common prediction. Someday, we are told, everyone will be able to use computers to send electronic mail across town or around the world, access medical and legal information, find out what's going on at their children's schools, complain to the mayor about the potholes, access the local public library card catalog, and so forth, all without ever leaving the comfort of home. For some that vision has become reality via one or more of the many commercial videotex companies which now exist. But the high cost of those commercial services have, in general, prevented most average citizens from using them. The result has been an "Information Age" which is becoming populated more by people with $50,000+ household incomes than anyone else. For the past five years researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio have been working on the development of extremely cost-efficient methods of delivering community based computerized information and communications services. Their work has resulted in a system which is so inexpensive to operate that it can be provided by virtually any community as a free public service. This report will touch on two aspects of their work. The first is the development of the Cleveland Free-net(tm), a prototype community computer system which currently averages about 2,000 logins a day and provides over 125 information and communications services to the Cleveland area. The second is the development of the National Public Telecomputing Network, a nonprofit organization devoted to disseminating this technology to other cities and linking them together into a common network. Because of space limitations, the following will only briefly outline these developments. Those wishing more information may contact the author at addresses shown at the end of the article. The Cleveland Free-net The Cleveland Free-net is a free, open-access, community computer system operated by Case Western Reserve University. Established in July 1986, the central Free-net computer has been programmed to allow anyone with a home, office, or school computer and a device called a modem, to call in 24 hours a day and access a wide range of electronic services and features. These services range from free world-wide electronic mail, to information in areas such as health, education, technology, government, arts, recreation, and the law. The key to the economics of operating a Free-net is the fact that the system is literally run by the community itself. Every feature that appears on the system is there because of individuals or organizations in the community who contribute their time, effort, and expertise to bring it online and operate it. On the Cleveland Free-net, for example, there are over 250 "sysops" (system operators) who are doctors, lawyers, educators, community group representatives, hobbyists, etc. each operating their own area and, thereby, contributing to the electronic whole. This is in contrast to the commercial systems which have very high personnel and information-acquisition costs and must pass those costs on to the consumer. The first version of the Free-net attracted over 7,000 registered users and averaged between 500 and 600 calls a day on ten incoming phone lines. In August 1989 Free-net II opened and currently averages over 2,000 logins a day on 48 telephone lines. At the moment the Free-net has a user base of about 10,000 persons, which is expected to grow eventually to at least 15-20,000 registered users in the Cleveland area. Eighty-six percent of Free-net users are over the age of twenty (average age 35.5 years) with a very deep middle class socio-economic penetration. Inherent in the project from the beginning was the idea that, if we were successful, we would make every attempt to disseminate this technology to other cities. As a result, in September 1989 the National Public Telecomputing Network was born. The National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) The concept behind NPTN is not new. You are probably familiar with National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting on television. To understand NPTN, simply substitute community computer systems for radio or television stations, and you have the core of what the organization hopes to accomplish. NPTN is a nonprofit corporation which is funded completely by voluntary membership dues from the users of its community computer systems, corporate and foundation grants and donations, and other fund-raising activities. One of its main objectives is to establish as many community computer systems as possible throughout the country. To that end the necessary software is being made available to qualified parties, on a license basis, for $1 a year. Each Free-net system is an affiliate of NPTN, which provides inter-system electronic mail handling and other services. In addition, NPTN provides Cybercastingt services whereby a wide variety of quality news and information features are delivered to the affiliates via NPTN feed -- a concept very similar to that of any radio or television broadcasting network. A five city network of NPTN community computers currently exists, with more expected to come online later this year. Services The list of services available on any given Free-net is limited only by the resources of the community in which it operates. The Cleveland system, for example, has 16 "buildings" which cover areas such as: government, the arts, science and technology, education, medicine, recreation, libraries, community affairs, business and industry, and law. It even has a "Teleport" which will transfer people to other area computer systems such as the Cleveland Public Library and other major libraries throughout northeast Ohio, and a "post office" to provide free electronic mail. NPTN network services include such features as: national and international electronic mail via the Internet, the dissemination of U.S. Supreme Court opinions within minutes of their release, the "Congressional Memory Project" which provides summaries of House and Senate bills and how our congresspersons voted on them, and hopefully soon, will be providing a network-wide electronic news service. The Greening of a Medium Toward the end of the last century the public library as we know it today did not exist. Eventually, however, literacy became high enough (and the cost of books cheap enough) that the free public library became feasible. People in cities and towns all over the country got together to make free public access to the printed word a reality. The result was a legacy from which virtually everyone reading this document has, at one point or another, benefited. We believe we have reached a point in this century where computer "literacy" has gotten high enough (and the cost of the equipment low enough) that a demand for free, public access, computerized information systems has developed. The Cleveland Free-net proved it could be done. NPTN is currently about the business of establishing these systems in cities throughout the country. And the futuristic dream of universal information and communication services for the community -- all of the community -- is not that far from becoming a reality. ___________________ For more information about the Cleveland Free-net or NPTN, please contack: T.M. Grundner, Ed.D., President, NPTN, Box 1987, Cleveland, OH 44106; Voice: (216) 368-2733; FAX: (216) 368-5436; Internet: aa001@cleveland.freenet.edu. ------ A Public Library Perspective on the NREN Lois M. Kershner Peninsula Libraries Automated Network The last paragraph of the Resolution on a National Research and Education Network submitted by the LITA Board of Directors (and endorsed by the LAMA Board of Directors) to the ALA Legislation Committee at the Chicago 1990 Midwinter Meeting states: RESOLVED That the American Library Association work to improve legislative and other proposals to increase opportunities for multitype library participation in and contributions to the National Research and Education Network. This clear statement recognizes a potential role for public libraries as well as those of the academic and corporate community in the development and opportunity of a National Research and Education Network (NREN). A brief review of articles addressing the NREN indicates that present network access best serves persons associated with institutions of higher education or large corporations with industrial laboratories where the technological development and funding have been made available. Access to existing networks, each with its databases and/or supercomputing and conferencing capabilities, is through institutional affiliation. For example, from a single workstation a staff member could not only access the institution's library online catalog and other databases mounted locally, but also switch through inter-network bridges to databases at other institutions, other data services, and bibliographic utilities. The articulation of the larger vision for the National Research and Education Network broadens the view beyond institutional affiliation, to a "workplace without walls." As Erich Bloch has stated: [The national network] is a facility in which a full range of the nation's intellectual resources--databases, libraries, computers, and people--are universally accessible to researchers and educators. In this new context, `remote' no longer means `isolated', and the concept of `scholar' is restored to its historic significance denoting a practitioner of a portable profession. Provision of information access for researchers and scholars is not limited to research and corporate libraries, however. The public research library has defined as its role the assistance to scholars and researchers as they conduct in-depth studies, investigate specific areas of knowledge, and create new knowledge. The needs of the individual may well go beyond the collection strengths of the public research library, speaking to the need for access to the resources available through a National Research and Education Network. The independent scholar whose library of residence is not a public research library has information access needs no different from those of colleagues living in close proximity to one. Indeed, any individual not associated with an institution already on a network can benefit from access to information resources on the NREN. Any public library therefore has the potential need, on behalf of its patrons, for connection to the NREN, whether by direct linkage to the network or indirectly through relationships with other regional institutions. Unlike academic and corporate research libraries, however, with access to such a network through institutional affiliation, the public library itself bears the full expense of network linkage. While public and other libraries can apply for grants to help bear the cost of linking to a network, for example from the National Science Foundation to link to the NSFNET, public funding must be made available to ensure that access to information can be both available and affordable. Now is the time that technological, access, funding, and governance issues for the National Research and Education Network are being addressed. Now is the time for the public library to be an active advocate for its needs, to ensure they are built into planning during the formative years of NREN, so that the broader vision of access to information in the "workplace without walls" becomes a reality. ___________________ Lois Kershner is project director for the Peninsula Libraries Automated Network, 25 Tower Road, Belmont, California 94002, and is a past president of LITA. ----- Electronic Networking: California State & Public Libraries Gary Strong, California State Librarian Kathy Hudson & John Jewell, CSL Library Automation State libraries and public libraries in the United States have valuable contributions to offer the users of a network such as NREN. Our California State Library serves as a public research library, provides for the information & library needs of state government, and works for the development & promotion of public library services for all Californians. The MELVYL System, in fact, includes the California State Library in addition to the nine University of California libraries. It is a source of pride to me as State Librarian and to our staff, that we are a net lender, not a net borrower, with these major research libraries. Throughout its 140 year history, the California State Library has acquired important works. Far West explorer, John C. Fremont, was one of the first contributors. The Sutro family of San Francisco fame provided the nucleus for an extensive local history and genealogy collection. The Paul Gann Archive contains the personal records of the originator of a tax revolt that rocked the nation's public sector. Nearly 3,000,000 records from newspapers, periodicals and books about California persons, places, and events are included in the California Room information files. The Government Publications Section is the only complete federal depository library in California and produces printed indexes to state publications. The State Library recognizes the importance of electronic access for its own holdings with over 500,000 RLIN records already in the MELVYL System; plans are close to completion to add over 200,000 federal document records, and a major retrospective conversion project is well underway for older state documents. Like Oregon State Library, which has brought up a variety of public information databases, we know that to serve our clientele we must provide more than our own bibliographic holdings. The State Library's own integrated library system, presently being installed, supports NISO standards and can mount non-MARC databases. It can link to a variety of external information sources, including, in a test, TCP/IP links to MELVYL and Internet. The State Library's planning, still in draft, includes providing electronic access for state agencies and public libraries to our holdings and to these other resources. Public and special libraries in the state have their own unique contributions. For example, the extensive holdings of the Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego public libraries have long been recognized as key research sources. Fresno County Free Library has one of the world's finest collections on William Saroyan. The California Institute of the Arts Library has more than 16,000 music scores, approximately 10,000 art exhibition catalogs, a large collection of screenplays, and the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art Artist's Registry with data and slides on contemporary southern California artists. The State Library has an active, positive role in helping libraries make such resources accessible. The California Statewide Data Base on OCLC is an ongoing project to build and maintain an automated data base of the current acquisitions of California public libraries. It contains nearly 9,000,000 California public library holdings records. Significant special reference resources from 93 public and special libraries were made available through last year's Telefacsimile Networking Grants (LSCA), including those of the California Institute of the Arts Library. As Ed Brownrigg points out in Developing the Information Superhighway: Issues for Libraries, implementation of NREN requires more than solving technical communication problems. It involves complex policy, procedural, governance and financing issues. A battery of California Library programs are helping lay a foundation. Libraries in the state are carefully building the structure for a multi-type network. A new model for reference referral, also recognizing contributions of all types of libraries, is under development and will provide access to high quality reference for all Californians. The state-funded (CLSA) Transaction Based Reimbursements Program provides a strong basis to encourage libraries to provide materials to other than their own clientele, assisting with direct loans of over 16,000,000 and interlibrary loans of over 460,000. The State Library and California public libraries have a valuable role in linking our users to the proposed NREN resources. Access to NREN by our libraries is critical to our mission to provide accurate, timely, and responsive reference and information service to our patrons. Moreover, our ability to provide access to specialized databases and current research relevant to public policy is of critical importance to ongoing support of NREN, whether it be current status of earthquake prediction or superconductor research. The majority of policy planners and decision-makers in the state will form their impression of libraries upon the quality and level of information they receive through the State Library and public library service programs. In California, as in the rest of the nation, entrepreneurial spirit is viewed as critical in state industries maintaining a competitive edge in the world market. Most of the companies in our high technology centers have or began with fifty or fewer employees. For these, there is no major research facility or corporate library. The local public libraries provide strong support as a research resource for such companies. The California State Library has encouraged and supported such development, for example, through grants to projects like the Silicon Valley Information Center in the San Jose Public Library. California's ethnically and racially diverse population poses a challenge to all public service organizations, and certainly to libraries - public, school, special and academic. The State Library has allocated over $4,000,000 in LSCA funds to assist community library service staff serving American Indian, Asian, Pacific, Black and Hispanic populations. We recently arranged with OCLC for the loading of Spanish language subject headings tapes. Asian Shared Information & Access (ASIA) continues to provide machine-readable cataloged titles (over 130,000 copies) in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese languages to libraries serving readers of Asian languages. In addition, the State Library and California public libraries have become increasing concerned with the growing division between the information-rich and information-poor, with serious gaps created by social, economic and geographic barriers. It is not enough to provide for delivery systems. Californians to be full participants in the new networking and new economy will require appropriate education. Although the rate of adult illiteracy in basic reading skills is staggering, the rate of information illiteracy in accessing and using more sophisticated information far exceeds this basic challenge. Public libraries have a responsibility to assist our patrons in developing information literacy. If we are to bridge this growing gap between the information-poor and the information-rich, we suggest an approach which does not require making every Californian information technology literate. It is mediated access through libraries that is realistic and appropriate. The libraries and their clientele can accept the value of the new technologies. The problem lies in equality of access. The public libraries serve as a base for such universal access for all Californians. Free and equal access are hallmarks for the California State Library and, we believe, for the public librarians of California. Recently, a headline read "All Librarians Are Radicals". The author, Stewart Brand, commented, "The only communicators taking full advantage of the electronic convergence of all media are the librarians, who owe allegiance to no single industry. In America librarians are officially sanctioned outlaws. They truly believe information ought to be free and follow wherever it explores ... libraries are major crafters of the emerging information infrastructure - infostructure." [Stewart Brand, "Outlaws, Musicians, Lovers, and Spies: The Future of Control", Whole Earth Review (Summer 1990), No. 67, pp. 130-135.] ----- Network Working Group V. Cerf Request for Comments: 1167 CNRI July 1990 THOUGHTS ON THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK Status of this Memo The memo provides a brief outline of a National Research and Education Network (NREN). This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify any standard. It is not a statement of IAB policy or recommendations. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. ABSTRACT This contribution seeks to outline and call attention to some of the major factors which will influence the form and structure of a National Research and Education Network (NREN). It is implicitly assumed that the system will emerge from the existing Internet. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author gratefully acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through cooperative agreement NCR-8820945. The author also acknowledges helpful comments from colleagues Ira Richer, Barry Leiner, Hans-Werner Braun and Robert Kahn. The opinions expressed in this paper are the personal opinions of the author and do not represent positions of the U.S. Government, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives or of the Internet Activities Board. In fact, the author isn't sure he agrees with everything in the paper, either! A WORD ON TERMINOLOGY The expression "national research and education network" is taken to mean "the U.S. National Research and Education Network" in the material which follows. It is implicitly assumed that similar initiatives may arise in other countries and that a kind of Global Research and Education Network may arise out of the existing international Internet system. However, the primary focus of this paper is on developments in the U.S. Cerf [Page 1] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 FUNDAMENTALS 1. The NREN in the U.S. will evolve from the existing Internet base. By implication, the U.S. NREN will have to fit into an international environment consisting of a good many networks sponsored or owned and operated by non-U.S. organizations around the world. 2. There will continue to be special-purpose and mission-oriented networks sponsored by the U.S. Government which will need to link with, if not directly support, the NREN. 3. The basic technical networking architecture of the system will include local area networks, metropolitan, regional and wide-area networks. Some nets will be organized to support transit traffic and others will be strictly parasitic. 4. Looking towards the end of the decade, some of the networks may be mobile (digital, cellular). A variety of technologies may be used, including, but not limited to, high speed Fiber Data Distribution Interface (FDDI) nets, Distributed-Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) nets, Broadband Integrated Services Digital Networks (B-ISDN) utilizing Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching fabrics as well as conventional Token Ring, Ethernet and other IEEE 802.X technology. Narrowband ISDN and X.25 packet switching technology network services are also likely play a role along with Switched Multi-megabit Data Service (SMDS) provided by telecommunications carriers. It also would be fair to ask what role FTS-2000 might play in the system, at least in support of government access to the NREN, and possibly in support of national agency network facilities. 5. The protocol architecture of the system will continue to exhibit a layered structure although the layering may vary from the present-day Internet and planned Open Systems Interconnection structures in some respects. 6. The system will include servers of varying kinds required to support the general operation of the system (for example, network management facilities, name servers of various types, email, database and other kinds of information servers, multicast routers, cryptographic certificate servers) and collaboration support tools including video/teleconferencing systems and other "groupware" facilities. Accounting and access control mechanisms will be required. 7. The system will support multiple protocols on an end to end basis. At the least, full TCP/IP and OSI protocol stacks will be supported. Dealing with Connectionless and Connection-Oriented Network Services in the OSI area is an open issue (transport service bridges and Cerf [Page 2] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 application level gateways are two possibilities). 8. Provision must be made for experimental research in networking to support the continued technical evolution of the system. The NREN can no more be a static, rigid system than the Internet has been since its inception. Interconnection of experimental facilities with the operational NREN must be supported. 9. The architecture must accommodate the use of commercial services, private and Government-sponsored networks in the NREN system. Apart from the considerations listed above, it is also helpful to consider the constituencies and stakeholders who have a role to play in the use of, provision of and evolution of NREN services. Their interests will affect the architecture of the NREN and the course of its creation and evolution. NREN CONSTITUENTS The Users Extrapolating from the present Internet, the users of the system will be diverse. By legislative intent, it will include colleges and universities, government research organizations (e.g., research laboratories of the Departments of Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, National Aeronautics and Space Administration), non-profit and for-profit research and development organizations, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), R&D activities of private enterprise, library facilities of all kinds, and primary and secondary schools. The system is not intended to be discipline- specific. It is critical to recognize that even in the present Internet, it has been possible to accommodate a remarkable amalgam of private enterprise, academic institutions, government and military facilities. Indeed, the very ability to accept such a diverse constituency turns on the increasing freedom of the so-called intermediate-level networks to accept an unrestricted set of users. The growth in the size and diversity of Internet users, if it can be said to have been constrained at all, has been limited in part by usage constraints placed on the federally-sponsored national agency networks (e.g., NSFNET, NASA Science Internet, Energy Sciences Net, High Energy Physics Net, the recently deceased ARPANET, Defense Research Internet, etc.). Given the purposes of these networks and the fiduciary responsibilities of the agencies that have created them, such usage constraints seem highly appropriate. It may be beneficial to search for less Cerf [Page 3] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 constraining architectural paradigms, perhaps through the use of backbone facilities which are not federally-sponsored. The Internet does not quite serve the public in the same sense that the telephone network(s) do (i.e., the Internet is not a common carrier), although the linkages between the Internet and public electronic mail systems, private bulletin board systems such as FIDONET and commercial network services such as UUNET, ALTERNET and PSI, for example, make the system extremely accessible to a very wide variety of users. It will be important to keep in mind that, over time, an increasing number of institutional users will support local area networks and will want to gain access to NREN by that means. Individual use will continue to rely on dial-up access and, as it is deployed, narrow-band ISDN. Eventually, metropolitan area networks and broadband ISDN facilities may be used to support access to NREN. Cellular radio or other mobile communication technologies may also become increasingly popular as access tools. The Service Providers In its earliest stages, the Internet consisted solely of government-sponsored networks such as the Defense Department's ARPANET, Packet Radio Networks and Packet Satellite Networks. With the introduction of Xerox PARC's Ethernet, however, things began to change and privately owned and operated networks became an integral part of the Internet architecture. For a time, there was a mixture of government-sponsored backbone facilities and private local area networks. With the introduction of the National Science Foundation NSFNET, however, the architecture changed again to include intermediate-level networks consisting of collections of commercially-produced routers and trunk or access lines which connected local area network facilities to the government-sponsored backbones. The government-sponsored supercomputer centers (such as the National Aerospace Simulator at NASA/AMES, the Magnetic Fusion Energy Computing Center at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the half- dozen or so NSF-sponsored supercomputer centers) fostered the growth of communications networks specifically to support supercomputer access although, over time, these have tended to look more and more like general-purpose intermediate-level networks. Many, but not all, of the intermediate-level networks applied for and received seed funding from the National Science Foundation. It was and continues to be NSF's position, however, that such Cerf [Page 4] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 direct subsidies should diminish over time and that the intermediate networks should become self-sustaining. To accomplish this objective, the intermediate-level networks have been turning to an increasingly diverse user constituency (see section above). The basic model of government backbones, consortium intermediate level nets and private local area networks has served reasonably well during the 1980's but it would appear that newer telecommunications technologies may suggest another potential paradigm. As the NSFNET moves towards higher speed backbone operation in the 45 Mb/s range, the importance of carrier participation in the enterprise has increased. The provision of backbone capacity at attractive rates by the inter-exchange carrier (in this case, MCI Communications Corporation) has been crucial to the feasibility of deploying such a high speed system. As the third phase of the NREN effort gets underway, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the "federally-funded backbone" model may and perhaps even should or must give way to a vision of commercially operated, gigabit speed systems to which the users of the NREN have access. If there is federal subsidy in the new paradigm, it might come through direct provision of support for networking at the level of individual research grant or possibly through a system of institutional vouchers permitting and perhaps even mandating institution-wide network planning and provision. This differs from the present model in which the backbone networks are essentially federally owned and operated or enjoy significant, direct federal support to the provider of the service. The importance of such a shift in service provision philosophy cannot be over-emphasized. In the long run, it eliminates unnecessary restrictions on the use and application of the backbone facilities, opening up possibilities for true ubiquity of access and use without the need for federal control, except to the extent that any such services are considered in need of regulation, perhaps. The same arguments might be made for the intermediate level systems (metropolitan and regional area access networks). This does NOT mean that private networks ranging from local consortia to inter-continental systems will be ruled out. The economics of private networking may still be favorable for sufficiently heavy usage. It does suggest, however, that achieving scale and ubiquity may largely rely on publicly accessible facilities. Cerf [Page 5] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 The Vendors Apart from service provision, the technology available to the users and the service providers will come largely from commercial sources. A possible exception to this may be the switches used in the gigabit testbed effort, but ultimately, even this technology will have to be provided commercially if the system is to achieve the scale necessary to serve as the backbone of the NREN. An important consequence of this observation is that the NREN architecture should be fashioned in such a way that it can be constructed from technology compatible with carrier plans and available from commercial telecommunications equipment suppliers. Examples include the use of SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) optical transmission technology, Switched Multimegabit Data Services offerings (metropolitan area networks), Asynchronous Transmission Mode (ATM) switches, frame relays, high speed, multi-protocol routers, and so on. It is somewhat unclear what role the public X.25 networks will play, especially where narrow and broadband ISDN services are available, but it is also not obvious that they ought to be written off at this point. Where there is still research and development activity (such as in network management), the network R&D community can contribute through experimental efforts and through participation in standards-making activities (e.g., ANSI, NIST, IAB/IETF, Open NMF). OPERATIONS It seems clear that the current Internet and the anticipated NREN will have to function in a highly distributed fashion. Given the diversity of service providers and the richness of the constituent networks (as to technology and ownership), there will have to be a good deal of collaboration and cooperation to make the system work. One can see the necessity for this, based on the existing voice network in the U.S. with its local and inter-exchange carrier (IEC) structure. It should be noted that in the presence of the local and IEC structure, it has proven possible to support private and virtual private networking as well. The same needs to be true of the NREN. A critical element of any commercial service is accounting and billing. It must be possible to identify users (billable parties, anyway) and to compute usage charges. This is not to say that the NREN component networks must necessarily bill on the basis of usage. It may prove preferable to have fixed access charges which might be modulated by access data rate, as some of the intermediate-level networks have found. It would not be surprising to find a mixture of charging policies in which usage charges are preferable for small Cerf [Page 6] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 amounts of use and flat rate charges are preferred for high volume use. It will be critical to establish a forum in which operational matters can be debated and methods established to allow cooperative operation of the entire system. A number of possibilities present themselves: use of the Internet Engineering Task Force as a basis, use of existing telecommunication carrier organizations, or possibly a consortium of all service providers (and private network operators?). Even if such an activity is initiated through federal action, it may be helpful, in the long run, if it eventually embraces a much wider community. Agreements are needed on the technical foundations for network monitoring and management, for internetwork accounting and exchange payments, for problem identification, tracking, escalation and resolution. A framework is needed for the support of users of the aggregate NREN. This suggests cooperative agreements among network information centers, user service and support organizations to begin with. Eventually, the cost of such operations will have to be incorporated into the general cost of service provision. The federal role, even if it acts as catalyst in the initial stages, may ultimately focus on the direct support of the users of the system which it finds it appropriate to support and subsidize (e.g., the research and educational users of the NREN). A voucher system has been proposed, in the case of the NREN, which would permit users to choose which NREN service provider(s) to engage. The vouchers might be redeemed by the service providers in the same sort of way that food stamps are redeemed by supermarkets. Over time, the cost of the vouchers could change so that an initial high subsidy from the federal government would diminish until the utility of the vouchers vanished and decisions would be made to purchase telecommunications services on a pure cost/benefit basis. IMPORTANCE OF COMMERCIAL INTERESTS The initial technical architecture should incorporate commercial service provision where possible so as to avoid the creation of a system which is solely reliant on the federal government for its support and operation. It is anticipated that a hybrid system will develop but, for example, it is possible that the gigabit backbone components of the system might be strictly commercial from the start, even if the lower speed components of the NREN vary from private, to public to federally subsidized or owned and operated. Cerf [Page 7] RFC 1167 NREN July 1990 CONCLUSIONS The idea of creating a National Research and Education Network has captured the attention and enthusiasm of an extraordinarily broad collection of interested parties. I believe this is in part a consequence of the remarkable range of new services and facilities which could be provided once the network infrastructure is in place. If the technology of the NREN is commercially viable, one can readily imagine that an economic engine of considerable proportions might result from the widespread accessibility of NREN-like facilities to business sector. Security Considerations Security issues are not discussed in this memo. Author's Address Vinton G. Cerf Corporation for National Research Initiatives 1895 Preston White Drive, Suite 100 Reston, VA 22091 EMail: vcerf@NRI.Reston.VA.US Phone: (703) 620-8990