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Some Other Friends of Mine
Some other friends of mine I've been involved with since their inception.
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WHAT'S NEW . . .
The following article was published recently in GLOSAS NEWS. We've had a
few folks request this information and thought that others (and
particularly new subscribers) might find the information in this article of
interest so we are republishing this in today's issue of the Digest.
GLOSAS News is the electronic bulletin of the GLObal Systems Analysis and
Simulation Association in the USA (GLOSAS/USA). It is distributed free of
charge by fax and electronic mail.
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WWW: "Friends and Partners"
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From Russia and America comes a new information service called "Friends
and Partners" -- one of the first such information systems jointly developed
by citizens of these two nations.
Its purpose is to help facilitate the creation of a "human network"
across cultural and political boundaries by utilizing resources of the
increasingly global Internet computer network. A special emphasis is placed
on building relationships between people of the United States and people of
the former Soviet Union -- countries and cultures isolated from each other
for most of the 20th century.
This new service was 'born' with an announcement on the Internet on
Wednesday, January 19, 1994. It is only 3 months old but growing up
rather quickly. With almost 700 regular subscribers to its daily mailing list
service and over 90,000 file retrievals from people representing over 40
countries, it has become a quite active service. But it is best considered
for the moment as a very new and immature creation -- a 'framework' for an
information system with more 'heart' than substance -- but with lots of
promise.
The task at hand is to help others build upon the framework -- to create
and link together information on our nation's histories; our art, music,
literature, and religion; our educational and scientific resources; our
business and economic opportunities; our geography and natural resources, our
languages; and our opportunities for communicating, travelling, and working
together. The 'end product' should be an evolving and continually changing
information resource that will hopefully help bridge the gulf of
understanding that exists between our nations and that will provide a
common 'meeting place'.
What are the practical uses of this service? Scientists should be able
to use the service to find information about funding opportunities and
exchange programs, access various databases and library resources, and locate
potential colleagues and co-workers. Teachers and educators at all levels
should be able to find and contribute interesting and up-to-date material to
assist in their instruction -- making their courses more 'alive' and more
pertinent to real world issues. Business people should be able to learn
about the economic environments and opportunities in both countries as well
as the rules and laws pertaining to conducting business. Artists (and their
patrons) should be able to learn about, meet and work with each other.
This effort hopes to build upon the excellent work already being
accomplished by our governments and by the various groups, centers,
institutes and individuals who have been working for so many years towards
the same goal of building cooperation and friendship.
Perhaps the main difference from other efforts is the use of the World
Wide Web on the Internet as the method of communicating information. The
World Wide Web was chosen because of its ability to handle mixed media (text,
graphics, audio, and, someday soon, video), the excellent graphic and
non-graphic browsers available for free on the Internet, and its ability to
'integrate' information from all of the best Internet-based tools and
utilities -- Usenet news, Gophers, WAIS indexes, FTP archives, telnet
sessions, etc. The Friends and Partners server already makes use of some
of the multi-media capabilities -- with several graphic images and maps
available for display and at least one example of music which can be played
by computers connected to the Internet (much more digitized music will be
available soon).
The service currently consists of several primary 'sections' including:
(1) History ; (2) Geography; (3) Art and music; (4) Literature; (5) Language;
(6) Related Internet Resources; (7) Education; (8) Science; (9) Funding and
Exchange Opportunities; (10) Economics and Business; (11) Tourism and Travel;
(12) "Life" (includes health and medical issues, cuisine, etc.); (13) News
and Weather; (14) USA Demographics; (15) Russia Demographics. These sections
point to information all over the world. This 'hypertext' capability makes
it very simple for the user to access information globally but from a single,
easy-to-use environment.
While we hope that, over the coming weeks and months, all of these areas
will be developed by those with appropriate interest, there are several areas
on which we are currently focusing attention. These include: (1) development
of a computer searchable "annotated white pages" directory which will focus
on people and organizations within the Former Soviet Union and on people and
organizations elsewhere who are working or wish to work in this area. We are
hoping to work with the IREX organization on this and have just recently
received approval by the Citizen's Democracy Corps (CDC) to place their NIS
email directory on-line; (2) creation of a vast collection of information
resources dealing with business and economics -- including material to help
business-people in the FSU create and manage successful business enterprise
and to help others who wish to conduct business in the FSU; (3) further
development of a top-notch news service; (4) development of a comprehensive
base of funding opportunity information; (5) development of a medical /
health issues forum; (6) creation of a network for the exchange of research
and education information. Our primary development emphasis during the time
since the server was announced has been to collect ideas and correspond with
the many people who have offered to help with this effort. The outpouring of
support from around the world has been quite remarkable and most encouraging.
The project demonstrates the potential for good that exists with this
wonderfully chaotic, global resource we call the Internet -- which makes
possible and simple the communication of information anywhere within its vast
reach throughout our world. This information resource is at least as
significant a development as the printing press was several centures ago --
the creation of global 'virtual communities' will undoubtedly prove to be one
of the most significant events of human history.
It has been asked "why do this?". The authors had a discussion several
months ago about experiences growing up in the 1960s, about fears both had
regarding the potential both countries had to destroy each other, and about
how effectively our nations had planned and allocated resources to help
create weapons of destruction that could realistically eliminate life in our
world. Given the immensity of this effort and the success with which it was
carried out, we both agreed (perhaps naively) to help focus attention on the
enormous good our nations could do if they applied even a fraction of the
resources to more constructive work together.
We feel that creating a joint information service could be a useful aid in
furthering the often invisible but very real infrastructure which supports
cooperative and constructive endeavor.
To visit the WWW server using the Mosaic software, use the URL:
http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/friends/home.html . If you cannot use Mosaic, just
telnet to solar.rtd.utk.edu and enter 'friends' at the login: prompt (in
all lowercase and without the quotes). To join the listserv with which we
post email and notices of new developments on the server, just send a one
line e-mail message to [email protected] consisting of:
SUBSCRIBE FRIENDS firstname lastname
We are 'rank amateurs' -- currently unfunded, untrained in political
theory or economics. But both authors are experienced with the collection and
dissemination of information and the construction of tools to enable more
effective use of information. With the active participation and assistance
of others, we believe we can further the cooperative infrastructure that
already exists between our nations. This is our hope and our ambition for
this effort.
Natasha Bulashova, Pushchino, Russia
Email: [email protected]
Greg Cole, Research Services, The University of Tennessee
211 Hoskins Library, Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone: (615) 974-2908; Fax: (615) 974-6508
Email: [email protected]
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