CONVENTIONS USED HERE

• The location of all items as URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). In general, they are of the form method://host/location, where method is telnet, gopher, ftp (anonymous unless otherwise stated), and http (for World Wide Web resources). Host refers to the computer that is the server for the data; for instance, I currently use whale.st.usm.edu. Finally, the location denotes the directory or directories and the file name. For telnet, there may be additional material for a password and userid. In that case, the URL is telnet://userid:password@host/location. Finally, some URLs require the "port" number on the server. This will follow the host with a colon preceding it.

  Note that many resources can be accessed in a variety of ways. World Wide Web "browsers" (such as Netscape or Mosaic) are the easiest to use since they can access any resource denoted by a URL (i.e. telnet, gopher, ftp and the hypertext). In general, for sites with more than one access method, the web version is the place to start; those URLs begin with "http."

  Since material on sites often moves, if you can't find it, you might have to search a bit for it.

  If you're completely new to the Internet, I'd suggest that rather than just going by the above description, you also take a look at the sections titled "USEFUL BOOKS AND SOFTWARE FOR AND ABOUT THE INTERNET," and "USEFUL RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET," and consult local guides.

• Items in " " are typed directly as commands, or denote directories and files. The context should make this clear.

• Most of the gopher and web sites devoted to economics are interconnected; no mention is made of this below since it would take a lot of space to say who is connected to whom. The gophers and web servers described in the section "SERVERS THAT POINT TO OTHER ECONOMIC RESOURCES" are especially strong in this regard.

• Information about compressed files, converting binary files to text so they can be emailed and converted back to binary, and locations of software (including web software) can be found in the sections titled "USEFUL BOOKS AND SOFTWARE FOR AND ABOUT THE INTERNET," and "USEFUL RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET."