From Russia and America comes a new information service called "Friends and Partners" -- one of the first such information systems jointly developed by citizens of these two nations.
Its purpose is to help facilitate the creation of a "human network" across cultural and political boundaries by utilizing resources of the increasingly global Internet computer network. A special emphasis is placed on building relationships between people of the United States and people of the former Soviet Union -- countries and cultures isolated from each other for most of the 20th century.
This new service was "born" with an announcement on the Internet on Wednesday, January 19, 1994. It is almost two months old but growing up rather quickly. With over 600 regular subscribers to its daily mailing list service and over 60,000 file retrievals from people representing over 40 countries, it has become a quite active service. But it is best considered for the moment as a very new and immature creation -- a "framework" for an information system with more "heart" than substance -- but with lots of promise.
The task at hand is to help others build upon the framework -- to create and link together information on our nation's histories; our art, music, literature, and religion; our educational and scientific resources; our business and economic opportunities; our geography and natural resources, our languages; and our opportunities for communicating, travelling, and working together. The "end product" should be an evolving and continually changing information resource that will hopefully help bridge the gulf of understanding that exists between our nations and that will provide a common "meeting place".
What are the practical uses of this service? Scientists should be able to use the service to find information about funding opportunities and exchange programs, access various databases and library resources, and locate potential colleagues and co-workers. Teachers and educators at all levels should be able to find and contribute interesting and up-to-date material to assist in their instruction -- making their courses more "alive" and more pertinent to real world issues. Business people should be able to learn about the economic environments and opportunities in both countries as well as the rules and laws pertaining to conducting business. Artists (and their patrons) should be able to learn about, meet and work with each other.
This effort hopes to build upon the excellent work already being accomplished by our governments and by the various groups, centers, institutes and individuals who have been working for so many years towards the same goal of building cooperation and friendship.
Perhaps the main difference from other efforts is the use of the World Wide Web on the Internet as the method of communicating information. The World Wide Web was chosen because of its ability to handle mixed media (text, graphics, audio, and, someday soon, video), the excellent graphic and non-graphic browsers available for free on the Internet, and its ability to "integrate" information from all of the best Internet-based tools and utilities -- Usenet news, Gophers, WAIS indexes, FTP archives, telnet sessions, etc. The Friends and Partners server already makes use of some of the multi-media capabilities -- with several graphic images and maps available for display and at least one example of music which can be played by computers connected to the Internet (much more digitized music will be available soon).
The service currently consists of several primary "sections" including: (1) History ; (2) Geography; (3) Art and Music; (4) Literature; (5) Language; (6) Related Internet Resources; (7) Education; (8) Science; (9) Funding and Exchange Opportunities; (10) Economics and Business; (11) Tourism and Travel; (12) "Life" (includes health and medical issues, cuisine, etc.); (13) News and Weather; (14) USA Demographics; (15) Russia Demographics. These sections point to information all over the world. This "hypertext" capability makes it very simple for the user to access information globally but from a single, easy-to-use environment.
While we hope that, over the coming weeks and months, all of these areas will be developed by those with appropriate interest, there are several areas on which we are currently focusing attention. These include: (1) development of a computer searchable "annotated white pages" directory which will focus on people and organizations within the Former Soviet Union and on people and organizations elsewhere who are working or wish to work in this area. We are hoping to work with the IREX organization on this and have just recently received approval by the Citizen's Democracy Corps (CDC) to place their NIS email directory on-line; (2) creation of a vast collection of information resources dealing with business and economics -- including material to help business-people in the FSU create and manage successful business enterprise and to help others who wish to conduct business in the FSU; (3) further development of a top-notch news service; (4) development of a comprehensive base of funding opportunity information; (5) development of a medical/health issues forum; (6) creation of a network for the exchange of research and education information. Our primary development emphasis during the time since the server was announced has been to collect ideas and correspond with the many people who have offered to help with this effort. The outpouring of support from around the world has been quite remarkable and most encouraging.
The project demonstrates the potential for good that exists with this wonderfully chaotic, global resource we call the Internet -- which makes possible and simple the communication of information anywhere within its vast reach throughout our world. This information resource is at least as significant a development as the printing press was several centuries ago -- the creation of a global "virtual community" will undoubtedly prove to be one of the most significant events of human history.
It has been asked "why do this?". The authors had a discussion several months ago about experiences growing up in the 1960s, about fears both had regarding the potential both countries had to destroy each other, and about how effectively our nations had planned and allocated resources to help create weapons of destruction that could realistically eliminate life in our world. Given the immensity of this effort and the success with which it was carried out, we both agreed (perhaps naively) to help focus attention on the enormous good our nations could do if they applied even a fraction of the resources to more constructive work together.
We feel that creating a joint information service could be a useful aid in furthering the invisible but very real infrastructure which supports cooperative and constructive endeavor. To visit the WWW server using the Mosaic software, use the URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/friends/home.html. If you cannot use Mosaic, just telnet to www.friends-partners.org and enter "friends" at the login: prompt (in all lowercase and without the quotes). To join the listserv with which we post email and notices of new developments on the server, just send a one line e-mail message to:
listproc@www.friends-partners.org
The message should read: SUBSCRIBE FRIENDS firstname lastname
We are "rank amateurs" -- unfunded, untrained in political theory or economics. But both authors are expert with the collection and dissemination of information and the construction of tools to enable more effective use of information. With the active participation and assistance of others, we believe we can further the cooperative infrastructure that already exists between our nations. This is our hope and our ambition for this effort.
Natasha Bulashova, Pushchino, Russia natasha@ibpm.serpukhov.su
Greg Cole, gcole@www.friends-partners.org
Research Services, The University of Tennessee
211 Hoskins Library, Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone: (615) 974-2908; Fax: (615) 974-6508
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April 1994
GLOSAS NEWS was orinally posted to the WWW at URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/cont.htm by Tina Evans Greenwood, Library Instruction Coordinator, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado 81301, e-mail: greenwood_t@fortlewis.edu, and last updated May 7, 1999. By her permission the whole Website has been archived here at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi from July 10, 2000 by Steve McCarty in Japan.