| The Basics of the WWW | Searching Via Netscape | Email and Listservs as Research Tools | Online Resources for Western History |
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http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/westweb/intro/tutorial.html
Each part of the address means something. Each part of the address is separated by a slash, "
For example, the "
Other common domains you may see (and their meanings) are: "
The part of the address listed after the domain is often preceded by a tilde, or the mark "
Other common extensions you will see while using Netscape (and what they mean) are: "
This is how Hypertext works. Every "link" which has been placed in a document will show up on the screen highlighted in a color, usually blue. If you click on that link with your mouse, you will connect to the linked site, just as you would read a footnote.
Sometimes the link will be to another file on the same host computer, and sometimes it will be to another site entirely. To see what site the link refers to, move your mouse cursor (without clicking) over the link, and look at the bottom left hand corner of your screen. The address of the link will appear there.
Another manner of navigating is to use the "Back" and "Forward" buttons at the upper left hand corner of the Netscape screen to move through the list of places you have been.
A third method of navigating is to use the "Go" pull-down menu at the top center of the Netscape screen; press "Go" with your mouse, and then hold the mouse button down as you scroll downward, pulling the menu with you. You will see a list of the sites you have visited during this Netscape session. By highlighting the site you wish to see, you can go there.
A fourth method of navigating is to use "Bookmarks," another pull-down menu at the top of the Netscape screen. Bookmarks are sites you have added to your bookmarks file by selecting "Add Bookmark" from the Bookmarks menu while at that site. You can return to bookmarked sites by simply pulling down the bookmark menu and highlighting your selection.
The "Stop" button, represented by the stop sign icon at the right of the "Location" line, is very useful. If you realize that you do not want to wait for a page to load completely, simply press the "Stop" button by clicking on it with your mouse. Then, you can press "Back" to return to your most recent page.
Alta-Vista - One of the best searchers there is.
Washington State University's American Studies Program has created an outstanding site regarding the Multicultural History of the American West (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~amerstu/mw/).
The site for the WETA/PBS documentary series on The West
(http://www3.pbs.org/weta/thewest/) provides an impressive array of documents, images, and text.
/".
The first part of the address, in this case "http," tells the computer what sort of transfer to use, and is called the "protocol."http" part of the address tells the computer to use HyperText Transfer Protocol. Other common protocol codes you may see will be "gopher" and "ftp," which will connect you via a gopher server (usually access to a list of files) or a File Transfer Protocol server (a way to download files from another computer).
The next part of the address, in this case "www.library.csi.cuny.edu," is the name of the host computer, the computer you will be connecting to. In this case, the host computer is in the library system at the College of Staten Island (CSI) of The City University of New York (CUNY).
The last part of the address of the host computer, in this case "edu," is the "domain." The ".edu" domain indicates that this site is hosted by an educational institution..com" (a commercial site), ".org" (a non-profit organization's site), ".mil" (a military site), ".gov" (a U.S. government site), etc. Outside the U.S., the address will list a country code after the domain name (for example ".nz" (for sites in New Zealand) and will use different domain codes, such as ".ac," (an academic community, equivalent to the U.S. domain ".edu").~". In these cases, this part indicate the account owner's name. This is the name of the person (or their online persona) who has made the website. In the case of this website, "westweb" follows the domain name, without a tilde. This shows you that you are looking at files in the WestWeb directory somewhere on the CSI machine.
The last parts of the address, if there are any, are the names of directories and files located on the user's account which you may
view using Netscape. Filenames usually end in what are called "extensions," or indications of the type of file you are viewing. Most commonly, you will see the extension ".html," which indicates that the file is written in HyperText Markup Language, a common language used on the WWW. An HTML file can be read using a Netscape, Mosaic, Lynx, Cello, or Explorer viewer; this viewer is called a "browser.".gif," (a Graphic Interchange Format file, meaning an image); ".jpg" or ".jpeg," (an image, usually used for photographs or paintings); ".au," ".wav" or ".snd," (various sound files, which require players; don't worry because Netscape will allow you to download anything necessary onto your computer); ".mov," ".avi," ".mpg" or ".mpeg," (various video files, which download film clips to view).
The World Wide Web is based on the use of "Hypertext," which is a way of linking documents to other documents. If you think about it like footnotes, it makes more sense. When you are reading and find a footnote, you know that you can look at the footnote to find more information, even if the footnote is not located right there on the page you are reading.
While you are in Netscape, there are several methods of navigation. First, you can type an address into the "Location" box at the top of the screen, and then hit return or enter. This will take you to another site.
In order to find sites on the WWW, you will be using a "search engine." A search engine is very much like a card catalog for the WWW. Like library card catalogs, search engines differ, providing different search options and organizational schema. The main differences among search engines regard the way in which they search the WWW. For example, some search engines only search for keywords in URLs. Some others, called "webcrawlers," search for keywords in entire pages. You should choose your search engine with this difference in mind.
This is a list of links to some of the most commonly used web searchers. Most are URL searchers, but Dogpile and Highway 61 both submit your search to several other search engines at once.
Dogpile - A multi-search-engine tool.
exCite - Another very good searcher.
Highway 61 - Sends your search to several search engines and collates the results.
HotBot - Search engine for pop-culture, news, and online culture. Run by Wired Magazine.
Infoseek - Yields fairly comprehensive results.
LookSmart - General, useful, search engine.
Lycos - High-yield search engine; seems to find more "technical" pages easily.
Magellan - Good, comprehensive searcher.
Planetsearch - Easy to use.
Webcrawler - Been around a long time, and still very good.
Yahoo - The most famous one. Good for general categories and lightweight searches.
There are several relevant online discussion lists regarding Western History and other fields of history, many of them run by H-NET, the Humanities Online Initiative funded by the NEH and Michigan State University. One of H-NET's lists which deals with
the American West is H-WEST.
H-WEST is a moderated list, which means that subscribers submit messages to the active moderator and the moderator forwards
messages to the rest of the subscribers. As a subscriber, you will receive the list messages as email in your mailbox. These messages might be research queries, announcements, or responses to previous posts to the list. In addition, H-WEST is archived and its logs are available on the WWW, so that you can read past "threads" of discussion to see what you have missed.
listserv@h-net.msu.edu via email with an empty subject line:subscribe h-west your name, your school's name or 'independent scholar'subscribe h-west Lillian Schlissel, Brooklyn College of CUNYsubscribe h-west Helen Hunt Jackson, Independent Scholar
Sites that are useful for doing Western history can be "reference sites," which refer you to lots of sites with good informational content, and "content sites," which are collections of primary documents and images that could be used, for example, as a text in a classroom.
My own WestWeb (http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/westweb/) site is currently being developed, but provides strong sections on Native American and Women's history in the West. For Western Women's History at WestWeb, see Making It Their Own: Women in the West on this site.
One of my favorite sites is a three-dimensional model of the Great Kiva in Chaco Canyon (http://sipapu.ucsb.edu/html/kiva.html), produced by the University of California at Santa Barbara's Department of Anthropology.
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