Pedal cycle legislation

3.2 Information Retrieval 3.3 Information Publishing 3.4 History of the Internet 3.5 Common Uses of the internet 3.6 Problems and Pitfalls 4.0 Conclusion

5.0 Summary

6.0 References/Further Reading

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, you read about the different types of electronic storage systems in libraries.In this unit, you will move a step further by reading and learning about the Internet and the World Wide Web. You will read about how computer has turned the world into a global village.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• give the brief history of the Internet

• describe the operation of the Internet

• describe the operation of the World Wide Web

• describe the classroom use of the Internet

• mention some of the problems and pitfalls of the Internet.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 The Internet

The Internet, also known as the "Net", "Information Superhighway", and

"cyberspace", is the collection of computer networks that links millions of computers and tens of millions of people worldwide. Computer on the Internet are linked together by a maze of interconnections sort of like a spider's web (Newby, Stepich, Lehman and Russel, 2000).

all networks" is the heart of the Information Age. They describe it thus:

The Internet (the "net") is a worldwide computer network that connects hundreds of thousands of smaller

networks.These networks link educational, commercial, non-profit, and military entities, as well as individuals.

O'Leary and O'Leary (2005) described the Internet as follows:

The Internet is often referred to as the Information Superhighway. In a sense, it is like a highway that connects you to millions of people and organizations. Unlike typical highways that move people and things from one location to another, however, the Internet moves your ideas and information. Rather than moving through geographical space, you move through cyberspace - the space of electronic movement of ideas and information.

These authors have actually put it succinctly what we ought to know about the Internet. The Internet can be seen as a 'liberator', 'instructor' and 'assistant' to every individual and corporate body that are conscious of providing and receiving information and utilizing these to influence positively the society in which we live.

The World-Wide-Web (w.w.w)

This is the multimedia part of the Internet. Williams and Sawyer (2005) stressed that the Internet has been around for more than 30 years but what made it popular, apart from e-mail, was the development in the early 1990s of the World-Wide- Web. They describe it as follows:

World-Wide-Web, usually called simply the "web" - and interconnected system of Internet computers (called servers) that support specially formatted documents in multimedia form.

Multimedia from "multiple media" refers to technology that presents information in more than one medium, such as text, still images, moving images, and sound.O'Leary and O'Leary (2005) stressed that the Web provides an easy-to-use, exciting multimedia interface to connect to the Internet and to access the resources available in Cyberspace.

In essence, the World-Wide-Web could be described as the 'distributor' of Internet services. The web is composed of many separately administered computer networks links.

Features of Computer Telecommunications

Computer telecommunications and the Internet have a number of applications. The three most common features are electronic mail

(e-Electronic Mail (e-mail)

Simply referred to as 'e-mail', electronic mail is the most widespread of computer telecommunications. It is analogous to postal mail but much faster and more versatile. It allows private messages to be sent from individual to other individual or from individual to groups. An e-mail message travels from the sending computer to the receiving computer, usually in seconds to minutes, it is stored in the receiver's electronic mail box until he is ready to access it. Once the message has been received, it can be stored, printed, replied to or forwarded to someone else. If the message is no longer needed, it can be deleted.

To send e-mail to someone on the Internet, you must have access to mail services on a computer linked to the Internet. This should be a known person's e-mail address.Just as you have postal mail address, everyone on the Internet has e-mail address. e.g.,[email protected].

A typical e-mail message has three basic elements: the header, message and signature. The header has the following information:

• Addresses: Addresses of the persons sending, receiving, and optionally anyone else who receives copies. E-mail has twobasic parts: User's name and domain name, which includes the domain code. e.g., [email protected] (pmlang user's name; lec.edu -domain name, edu - -domain code showing it is an educational institution). Other domains are: gov (government), mil (military), net (network) org (organization). Countries also have similar domain, e.g. fr (France), uk

(United Kingdom), ng (Nigeria), etc. Let us see an illustration as shown below User Name

(User ID) Domain Name [email protected]

Domain Top-level domain Country (location) (domain type)

• Subject: a one-line description used to present the topic of the message. Subject lines are displayed when a personchecks his mail.

• Attachments: Many e-mailsallow attachment of files such as documents and worksheets. If a message has anattachment, the name of the file appears on the attachment line.

number.

Unsolicited e-mails are called spam. They are distractions and nuisance and can be dangerous. Computer viruses or destructive programmes are often attached to spam. You should not open them.