Subject: Re: CCL:Chemistry WWW home pages

From: [email-masked] (Rzepa, Henry)
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 10:08:01 +0000

Toni Kazic writes:

> I
>suggest it would be more useful to have a database of URNs with additional
>information in fields as to type and nature of data.

I totally endorse this. Perhaps the URC (citation or characteristic, I
cannot remember which) will also help, since it identifies key features
of a document (its date, its authors, its location, its COST, its expiry,
and perhaps even its keywords).  However, I would point out that
the infra structure needed for global URNs will represent a massive
investment of equipment and software. It will come, but only over
a period of perhaps years. Can we wait that long?
>
>But all of this requires resources.
In the UK, several funding initiatives are under way which hopefully will
provide resources. For example, the FIGIT plan is intended to provide
20 million pounds over 5 years, and there are several European initiatives.
Perhaps people might wish to comment on whether funding in their
own environment is beginning to flow? In this regard, membership of
the W3O is critical. Again, do any of you know if you have a local
representative? For example, Netscape are members!
>
>3.  Anyone who has used WAIS to search the Web knows how easy it is to get
>useless, patently silly answers.

I happen to view this area as the one giving the most exciting and challenging
opportunity of all. The development of intelligent robots which can sort the
chaos out and deliver it to us is an untouched area. Will we leave it
to computer scientists? Come on all you budding chemistry programmers,
get thinking!!  Come on all you software houses, wake up to the
possibilities!!!

Dr Henry Rzepa, Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY.
Tel:  +44 171 594 5774. Fax: +44 171 594 5804. E-mail: [email-masked]
URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa.html             Sent using Eudora 2.1.1