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Access Culturelink Through Internet
Mira Mileusnić Škrtić is a computer specialist and adviser for information systems at the IRMO. She has B.S. in mathematics and information from the University of Zagreb. Her work responsibilities include the development of the information system of the IRMO's Documentation Centre for Cultural Development and Cooperation.
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Culturelink - the Network of Networks for Research
and Cooperation in Cultural Development is from last year accessible
via Internet. The use of Internet, a global network of computer
networks, is expanding rapidly as individual computer users and
institutions recognize its value for communication, research and
marketing. Internet is a network of more than 13000 computer networks
linking approximately 3.2 million computers and over 30 million
users in 150 countries. They are located at universities, scientific
research establishments, governmental agencies, colleges, and
commercial organizations. The network features many commercial
computer services or bulletin boards. The use of Internet is growing
at the rate of about ten per cent per month. The ability of computer
networks to overcome barriers of time and space will increasingly
threaten the position of intermediaries in a wide range of cultural
activities. It is expected that we shall soon have more flexible
and higher capacity networks capable of carrying an institution's
entire electronic traffic. This implies a single network capable
of supporting data, voice, facsimile and video. Such a network
could carry services ranging from simple electronic mail to multimedia
services. Multimedia services involve text, graphics, video and
sound converted into computer language.
The key to many of the new possibilities is information
carried in digital form, so that it can be stored and manipulated
by computers, using fibre optic cabling providing adequate conduits
for the volume of information carried, a new generation of powerful
microprocessors and, most important, an enabling technology called
asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), which promises to revolutionize
the way computer networks are built. It provides for high-speed
transmission and is suitable for many kinds of graphics, voice,
data, facsimile, real-time video, CD-quality audio and imaging.
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IRMO (Institute for Development and International
Relations) hosts the Culture and Communications Programme, that
coordinates the work of Culturelink. IRMO is linked with CARNet
(Croatian Academic Research Network)2, which is a part
of Internet. CARNet's goal is to interconnect existing and future
local area networks in the academic and scientific community acting
as a national backbone3. All computers attached to
the network can exchange information in the form of: electronic
mail, transfer of files (telnet4) and remote use of
computers (ftp5 services). Gopher clients are also
encouraged on all computers. Gopher is a way of organizing information
resources offered by computers on Internet. It is a client- server
information system. Anyone on Internet can use the gopher "client"
program to access information. The client program serves as the
user interface to the information in "gopherspace".
It obtains a "document" from the server and displays
it. That document may be a text or other form of information,
or it may be a menu of other documents. Most of the items in this
menu end in a slash ("/"), which indicates that selecting
the item will bring up another menu of selections. Any item ending
in a period (".") is a document that can be displayed.
Now the Culturelink Network makes possible new forms of communication
that are inherently capable of being more interactive, more participatory,
more egalitarian, more decentralized, and less hierarchical. It
affects the way we think and act, and the way we work with others.
The purpose is to encourage the participation of its members as
active creators of information as well as recipients. The rapid
growth of the network itself is understandable, as it lowers barriers
to entry for new parties wishing to join the network. The network
is open to everybody interested in the field of culture, and this
openness reflects the sensibilities and values of its architects.
With Culturelink you are about to start a journey through a unique
land without frontiers. Culturelink on Internet becomes a place
that is everywhere at once. You will be joining a growing community
of people around the world who use this cultural resource on a
daily basis. One of the main goals of the Culturelink network
is to be useful for everyone that is in, and everyone's contribution
in it makes the network richer.
The Culturelink programme has developed exchanges
and cooperation throughout the world. We have developed several
cultural data bases: Cultural Policy Data Base, Culturelink Data
Base, and different bibliographical data bases. The Cultural Policy
Data Base is an integral part of the project entitled the Current
State of Cultural Policies and Life. The Cultural Policy Data
Base is installed on CARNET using gopher and is being continuously
updated. With it you will have the world at your fingertips. It
figures as a public on-line service. You can reach it by gopher
carnet.hr, where you search for the Institute for Development
and International Relations, and under the projects you can find
Cultural Policies. Selecting the item Europe will bring up a list
of seventeen countries, among which seven are newly updated (Italy,
Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Greece, Finland, Israel). The target
users for the Cultural Policies Database are mainly researchers
and scholars in the field of culture and policy-makers worldwide.
Under Publications you will find the bulletin Culturelink. Under
Conferences can be found announcements of international conferences
such as the following: The Network of Networks for Research and
Cultural Development - Culturelink is organizing an International
Conference on Dynamics of Communication and Cultural Change -
The Role of Networks, to be held in Zagreb, Croatia, 8-11 June
1995, under the auspices of UNESCO and the Council of Europe,
within the framework of the World Decade for Cultural Development.
For further information, please contact us at
the address: Culturelink/IRMO, Lj. F.
Vukotinovica 2, 41000 Zagreb, Croatia; phone: (385-1) 45
45 22; fax: (385-1) 44 40 59; E-mail: clink@irmo.hr, or
Mira.Skrtic@mairmo.irmo.hr
Footnotes
- Technical terms explained referring to: Guide
to Local Area Networking by David Palmer-Stevens for Cabletron
Systems, Newbury, Berks; Local Area Networks: making the right
choices by Philip Hunter, Addison-Wesley, Wokingham; The Computer
Industry: Battle for the Desktop, published May 31, 1994; Telecommunications
in Business, June 15, 1994.; Computer Networking, June 28, 1994,
Networking Glossary, accessible via gopher on carnet.hr; Journey
to Cyberspace by Denise Pelissier, The Unesco Courier, February,
1995.
- See information about CARNet, offered on-line
through gopher server at carnet.hr
- It is a generic term for a Lan or Wan connection
'trunk' between subnetworks across an enterprise. Subnetworks
are connected to the backbone via bridges and/or routers.
- Packet switched network service offered by US
Sprint.
- File Transfer protocol, the Internet standard
high-level protocol for transferring files from one computer to
another.
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