October 1996 € Volume 23 € Number 5

Cyberspace
Avenues for Information

By Mohan Sodhi

"Alas! Alas! Small things overcome great ones, the Nile rat kills the crocodile, the swordfish kills the whale, the book will kill the edifice."

These are the mysterious words uttered by Dom Claude in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" as he looks sadly from a printed book to the cathedral of Notre Dame. The narrator himself provides the interpretation: "Printing will kill architecture" as a "book is soon made, costs but little, and can go so far."

Now substitute "printing" with "Internet" (or "multimedia"), and "architecture" with "printing," and the quote may still hold true. As books made information accessible to more people than was possible with stone edifices, so it is with the Internet. But there is also more junk: anyone with an opinion can make it known through their Web page or by flooding an e-mail list.


Seeking information
So, how do we seek relevant information? Following is a guide on how to think about seeking information in cyberspace:

(1) Seeking help from people

From one person: Find e-mail addresses of people who could help or direct you.

From many: You can use e-mail lists that are devoted to special topics.
Typically, these lists let you post queries only if you are a subscriber. To access the list of OR/MS-related list servers by e-mail, send the message "get emaillst.txt" to [email protected]