Medieval Studies on the Internet
Table of Contents
- How to Subscribe to an Academic Network.
- A List of Medieval Academic Discussion
Groups.
- A List of Related Academic Discussion
Groups.
- Other Academic Discussion Groups.
- Other Helpful Addresses.
- The Oxford Text Archive.
- The Society for Early English & Old
Norse ElectronicTexts.
- The Library of Congress.
- On-Line Bookstore.
- The Chaucer On-Line Bibliography.
- The Dartmouth Dante Project.
- Seymour.
- UnCover.
- Wellcome Institute Library Database.
- Labyrinth.
- Uploading and Downloading.
- Listserver Commands.
How To Subscribe to an Academic Discussion Group
.
If you have a computer account at your university, you can become
a member of an academic network, or discussion group, free of
charge simply by subscribing. To subscribe, do the following:
1) Log in to your account and get into MAIL.
2) Address a message to the LISTSERV account (given on the
next pages) that handles the network you want to join.
3) Send a message that reads as follows:
sub listname your name
For example, if your name is Fenwick Furd and you want to join
the medieval language and literature discussion group MEDTEXTL,
you would address your message to listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet (if
your university is on Bitnet) or to listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (if
your university is on Internet). The message you send would read:
sub medtextl fenwick furd
Or, if your name is Floradora Sturdley and you want to join the
medieval feminist discussion list MEDFEM-L, then you would send
to listserv@uwavm.bitnet (or listserv@uwavm.u.washington.edu)
this message:
sub medfem-l floradora sturdley
Remember to put nothing on the subject line. Anytime you send a
one-line command, the subject line must be left blank or the
command will not be accepted.
If you have done everything correctly, within a day or so,
sometimes within only a few minutes, you will receive a reply
from the listserver informing you that your request has been
accepted and that you are now a member of the network. This
initial reply will usually also include instructions on how to
access files and other information that the network makes
available to its members. It will also explain how to unsubscribe
and how to postpone or resume receiving mail sent to the network
by other subscribers. With most networks, you will also receive
in the first day or so a directory of other members as well as
introductory information about the network, including its scope,
its aims, and its protocol. You will also immediately begin to
receive messages sent to the network by other members.
Many of the networks are quite active. The daily volume of mail
on all of them drops off during the summer and on holidays, but
during the fall and spring semesters, some may handle as many as
twenty to thirty messages a day, which, if you read them all word
for word, may take over a half-hour to finish. This is fine if
you have the time for it, but we all go through periods when we
cannot afford to waste a minute, and in these times the best
thing to do is to send a one-line command to the appropriate
listserver to sTOP the messages from coming until further notice.
The wording of the command varies from one network to another,
but all can be stated on a single line, and the exact wording is
usually provided in the introductory information you get when you
join the network. (If it does not, the list of commands given as
Listserv Commands at the end of this document may be successfully
used.) Then, when the deadline has passed, or when you have
returned from your trip out of town, you can just as easily
resume receiving the network mail with a resume mail command.
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Medieval Academic Discussion Groups
.
Here is a listing of medieval academic discussion groups you may
want to join along with the addresses of the listservers that
carry them. Annotations for some of them appear in the
paragraphs below the list.
NETWORK: LISTSERVER ADDRESS: SUBJECT AREA:
ANSAX-L listserv@wvnvm.bitnet Anglo-Saxon Studies
listserv@wvnvm.wvnet.edu
ARTHURNET listserver@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Arthurian Studies
BMMR-L listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu Medieval Book Reviews
CHAUCER listserv@uicvm.bitnet Chaucer and Medieval Lit.
listserv@uicvm.uic.edu
EARLYM-L listserv@aearn.bitnet Early Music
listserv@aearn.edvz.univie.ac.at
GERLINGL listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet Older Germanic Languages
listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (to 1500)
HEL-L listproc@ebbs.english.vt.edu History of the English
Language
INTERSCRIPTA listserver@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Directed Medieval
Discussions
MDVLPHIL listserv@lsuvm.bitnet Medieval Philosophy
listserv@lsu.edu
MEDEVLIT listserv@siucvmb.bitnet Medieval Literature
listserv@siucvmb.siu.edu
MEDFEM-L listserv@uwavm.bitnet Medieval Feminist Studies
listserv@uwavm.u.washington.edu
MEDGAY-L listserv@ksuvm.ksu.edu Medieval Gay Studies
MEDGER listproc@csuohio.edu Medieval German Studies
MEDIBER listserv@merle.acns.nwu.edu Medieval Iberian Studies
MEDIEV-L listserv@ukanvm.bitnet Medieval History
listserv@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu
MEDLITERACY-L listserv@uclink.berkeley.edu Medieval Literacy
MEDTEXTL listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet Medieval Languages & Lit.
listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
OLDNORSENET listproc@hum.gu.se Old Norse Studies
ANSAX-L is the discussion group for ANSAXNET, the Anglo-
Saxon Network. It has over 600 members from fifteen or twenty
different countries and, as one would expect from such a large
membership, has a fairly high volume of mail. Discussions cover
not only Old English language and literature, but also Anglo-
Saxon archeology, history, philosophy, and the arts. As with
other networks, one also runs across calls for papers, job
listings, announcements of new journals, new computer services,
and the like.
ARTHURNET, a new network devoted to all subjects relating to
King Arthur and the knights of the round table, has apparently
replaced an older and less successful one called CAMELOT, an
English network. Arthurnet is based in Canada, and the
commands for setting options with the listserver are slightly
different from most of those based in the U.S. The command for
subscribing is the same, though.
BMMR-L, the Bryn Mawr Medieval Review, is, as its name
implies, devoted to the review of books on medieval TOPics.
Members are not only automatically sent reviews of new books as
they become available but may also retrieve older reviews from
the archives. They may also contribute their own reviews to the
network.
CHAUCER, the discussion group for Chaucernet, is, like
Ansaxnet, fairly active in terms of mail. It generally confines
itself to Chaucer studies, although related fourteenth-century
works such as Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
also get discussed here. Last fall when I was teaching a Chaucer
course, I found some of the pedagogical discussions on this
network to be especially helpful.
EARLYM-L, a discussion group for those interested in early
music, is a relatively high-volume network with postings from
musicians both inside and outside academe.
GERLINGL, a discussion group for older Germanic language
studies, is a relatively low-volume group, but some good
information is presented on it from time to time. If one has
interests in this area, then one may wish to subscribe to it in
addition to a related higher volume group like Ansax-l.
HEL-L, a new discussion group devoted to studies in the
history of the English language, is primarily but not exclusively
pedagogical. Initially it was quite busy, but at the present
time postings are infrequent.
MDVLPHIL, devoted to medieval philosophy, does not have many
postings.
MEDFEM-L is a fairly high-volume discussion group for
medieval feminist studies.
MEDEVLIT, established as a forum for medieval literature, is
a low-volume network. It was originally devoted to Chaucer, but
when the founder learned that an active Chaucer network was
already in existence, he changed it to medieval lit. However,
Medtextl already had that territory covered, too, and Medtextl is
still the one almost all scholars in medieval lit prefer,
although many belong to both groups.
MEDGER is a new discussion group devoted to medieval German
studies on all TOPics except linguistics. It has a relatively
small membership and low volume of postings.
MEDIBER is a new discussion group devoted to medieval
Iberian literatures, languages, histories, and cultures. It is
fairly active. Many of its postings are in Spanish.
MEDTEXTL, the discussion group for medieval languages and
literature, also has a large number of messages. In contrast to
ANSAX-L and CHAUCER, it has more postings for continental
languages, literature, and the arts, and perhaps for that reason
has a rule that any postings or quotations in any language other
than English include translations along with the originals. This
can be a real help for, say, a Germanic scholar trying to follow
a conversation quoting medieval Italian or for a Romanticist
trying to decipher something from Old Norse.
OLDNORSENET is a new discussion group devoted to Old Norse
history, literature, and philology. Based in Sweden, if focuses
on Viking and early Scandinavian studies. It does not have a
high
volume of postings.
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Related Academic Discussion Groups
.
HUMANIST listserv@brownvm.bitnet Studies in the Humanities
listserv@brownvm.brown.edu
CELTIC-L listserv@irlearn.bitnet Celtic Studies
listserv@irlearn.ucd.ie
ESPORA-L listserv@ukanvm.bitnet Spanish and Portuguese
listserv@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu Historical Studies
GAELIC-L listserv@irlearn.bitnet Gaelic Studies
listserv@irlearn.ucd.ie
FRANCEHS listserv@uwavm.bitnet French Historical Studies
listserv@uwa.edu.au
GRMNHIST listserv@uscvm.bitnet German Historical Studies
listserv@usc.edu (from 800 a.d.)
PHILOSOP listserv@yorkvm1.bitnet Studies in Philosophy
listserv@vm1.yorku.ca
FICINO listserv@utoronto.bitnet Renaissance Studies
listserv@epas.utoronto.ca
RENAIS-L listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet Renaissance History
listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
REED-L listserv@utoronto.bitnet Records of Early English
listserv@epas.utoronto.ca Drama & Related TOPics
SHAKSPER listserv@utoronto.bitnet Shakespeare Studies
listserv@epas.utoronto.ca
WELSH-L listserv@irlearn.bitnet Welsh Language & Studies
listserv@irlearn.ucd.ie
BMR-L listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu Medieval & Classical Book
Reviews
BYZANS-L listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu Byzantine Studies
MAPHIS listserv@harvarda.harvard.edu Map History Studies
Of these related discussion groups, perhaps the one of most
general interest would be the first one, Humanist. Devoted to
studies in the humanities, Humanist is a little different from
the others in that its editors screen the messages and then group
them by TOPic before sending them out. Thus, if you belong to
Humanist, you may not get any mail at all for a few days, and
then go in and find ten or fifteen messages at once. So even
though Humanist has over a thousand members, its volume is not as
high as Ansax-l, Chaucer, or Medtextl, but because its postings
are screened, the quality of the messages is generally high.
I will give no additional explanation of the other groups
listed here except to say that the last one, BMR-L, is the Bryn
Mawr Medieval Review combined with the Bryn Mawr Classical
Review. So if you are a classicist as well as a medievalist, you
might prefer to subscribe to this network rather than just the
Bryn Mawr Medieval Review.
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Other Academic Discussion Groups
.
Of course, the medieval and related discussion groups given above
are not the only academic networks that exist. There are many
others covering a host of subjects from Astronomy to Zoology, and
if you have interests other than medieval, you may want to know
what else is available. To obtain a listing of these other
academic networks with brief descriptions and subscription
information, send to listserv@kentvm.bitnet or to
listserv@kentvm.kent.edu the following one-line commands:
GET ACADLIST README
GET ACADLIST FILE1
GET ACADLIST FILE2
GET ACADLIST FILE3
GET ACADLIST FILE4
GET ACADLIST FILE5
GET ACADLIST FILE6
GET ACADLIST FILE7
GET ACADLIST FILE8
Get ACADLIST README first since it contains general introductory
information, then send for the others two or three at a time.
You can stack up several one-line commands in a single posting,
but because of the size of the acadlist files, the listserver at
Kent will send you only about two of them at a time. General
listings for each file are as follows:
Acadlist File1 Anthropology to Education
Acadlist File2 Geography to Library & Info. Sciences
Acadlist File3 Linguistics to Political Science
Acadlist File4 Psychology to Writing
Acadlist File5 Biological Sciences
Acadlist File6 Physical Sciences
Acadlist File7 Business, Academia, News
Acadlist File8 Computer Science, Computer Related Info.
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Other Helpful Addresses
.
The Oxford Text Archive
.
Besides e-mail and academic discussion groups, medievalists
with computer accounts also have other services available to
them. One of these is the ability to obtain free of charge--or
for only a nominal fee--important research aids such as
electronic texts. These electronic texts are usually complete
literary works stored as computer files which may be sent to your
computer and then downloaded by you onto your hard disk and into
your word-processing software. Probably the largest repository
of accessible electronic texts on medieval TOPics is the Oxford
Text Archive (or OTA). From the OTA you may obtain for no charge
almost any of the major English or continental literary classics
simply by filling out a form and signing a statement in which you
swear to use the text for scholarly purposes only and not for
class texts or for commercial use. Once the OTA people receive
your application, they will send you electronically up to five
requested texts, which you can then download onto your hard disk
into your own word-processing software.
Of course, you may never need an electronic version of a
text, but if you do, this service can be invaluable. A colleague
of mine got several Old English poetic texts from the OTA,
recorded his scansions above the lines one by one on his computer
and thus created a metrical catalog of the Old English verse
types for those poems, which he was then able to manipulate in
various ways. Philologists can use electronic texts for word
studies by using concordance programs on them or by using their
own word-processing program's search commands, and so on. At
present, the main drawback to the texts in the Oxford Text
Archive is that they are frequently not the authoritative
editions for the works in question. The Archive gathered its
collection by accepting electronic texts indiscriminately from
donors who had scanned the texts for a variety of reasons, and to
avoid legal complications many of these donors deliberately chose
texts whose copyrights had expired.
For more information send to listserv@brownvm.bitnet or to
listserv@brownvm.brown.edu the following message:
get humanist filelist
or, if that presents a problem, send an e-mail message requesting
more information to archive@vax.oxford.ac.uk or, you may obtain
these files by anonymous ftp from black.ox.ac.uk in the directory
/ota (See no. 7 of this file for instructions on using ftp.)
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SEENET (The Society for Early English & Old
Norse Electronic Texts)
.
Another disseminator of electronic texts will be SEENET,
located at the University of Virginia. Still in the process of
formation, SEENET plans to provide authoritative texts at a
discount to members and at a slightly higher rate to non-members.
Annual dues for the society will be about $20, or at least that
was the figure being batted around in discussions I heard at the
Medieval Conference at Kalamazoo.
For more information, contact Prof. Hoyt Duggan by e-mail at
hnd@virginia.edu (or) hnd@virginia.bitnet
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The Library of Congress
.
If you are doing research and need full bibliographic
information for a work your library does not have, you most
likely will be able to find what you need by searching the on-
line catalog of the Library of Congress. To access the Library
of Congress, you do not use your Mail function. Instead, you go
through Telnet, which is a function similar to but separate from
Mail. After logging into your account and typing in your
password, send the following one-line command:
telnet locis.loc.gov
This should get you in without any trouble, provided you remember
to use the service during working hours. For central time these
are Monday-Friday 5:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Saturday 7:00 a.m.-4:00
p.m.; and Sunday 12:00-4:00 p.m.
The commands for using the Library of Congress are not like
those in your university library. The most useful ones are given
below. Remember that if you ever get stuck, you can go back to
the original menu by typing exit and hitting [enter].
TYPE: FOR:
b clancy, tom author search
b burden of proof title search
b solar energy subject search
(Your screen will then show one or more entries, or sets. To
access the desired sets, follow directions at bottom of screen.)
other commands:
d 1 (or appropriate no.) display entry
d full 1 (or approp.no.) display full format
n (when in full format) advance to next record
d brief 1 (or approp.no.) return to brief format
b b6 return to last alphabetical index
WORD OR PHRASE SEARCHING:
find cats; f=bo find records with the word cat
find cats and space; f=bo find records with both words
find p cervantes and t ejemplares; f=bo
(p=personal name, t=title, n=notes,
se=series, s=subject, f=bo means
find books)
other commands:
page np display next page of full or brief display
page pp display previous page of full or brief
display
help help
exit return to Library of Congress menu
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On-Line Bookstore
.
Book Stacks Unlimited is an on-line bookstore which carries
over 650,000 titles. Once you have reached it, you may "browse"
the shelves and/or search for books by author, title, or subject.
After making your selections, you may make your order over the
computer. Prices are similar to those found at bookstores in the
mall. Some electronic texts are available. Accessing the
bookstore is not difficult. When you are logged into your
account but not in mail or anything else, type the following line
and hit [Enter]:
telnet books.com
The first time you access Book Stacks, you will be asked to enter
a password and to provide your mailing address. (When I tried it
for the first time, I couldn't get it to accept the password I
gave it, so I tried a second, which for some reason it accepted.)
Once you are logged into the bookstore, just follow the
directions on the screen. You do not have to place an order
unless you want to.
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The Chaucer On-Line Bibliography
.
The Chaucer On-line Bibliography, provided by Mark Allen, is
a database for publications on Chaucer studies for the year 1991.
Entries are annotated and searches can be done by author, title,
subject, or keyword. Although 1991 is the only year currently
available, the long-term goal is to incorporate all entries going
back to 1975 while updating new entries annually. To access the
Chaucer On-Line Bibliography, log in to your account and without
going into mail type the following and hit [Enter]:
telnet utsaibm.utsa.edu
This should get you into the University of Texas at San Antonio
system. When requested to enter your application request, type
LIBRARY and hit [Enter]. Then at the menu prompt type LOCAL and
[Enter]; then at the next screen type CHAU and [Enter]. You will
then be in the Chaucer Bibliography, where you can do your
searching by following the directions given on the screen. To
exit the bibliography, type STOP, and to exit from UTSA back to
your account type QUIT or BYE. If for some reason you get caught
up in the system and these commands don't work, you can also exit
back to your account by hitting the Esc key and then typing xx.
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The Dartmouth Dante Project
.
The Dartmouth Dante Project is a database of Dante's Divine
Comedy. It is designed to give scholars "easy access to full
texts of important critical works, many of which are rare and
difficult to obtain." To access the Dartmouth Dante Project, log
in to your account and without going into mail type the following
and hit [Enter]:
telnet library.dartmouth.edu
This will get you into the Dartmouth library. When you get the
opening on-line catalog menu (e.g. "Welcome to the Dartmouth
College Library, etc.) type CONNECT DANTE and hit [Enter]. Then
when asked what type of system you are using, type VT100 (unless
you know you are using a different kind) and then press [Enter]
until the screen displays this: Enter search or option letter.
>From this point on, follow the directions given on the screen.
To leave the Dante Project type q (for quit), and to leave the
Dartmouth College Library, type BYE.
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Seymour
.
Seymour is a gopher service available on telnet. Gopher is
similar to telnet in that it allows you easy access to
information located worldwide. If your university is linked up
to Gopher, you can use it to receive a wealth of information on a
multitude of TOPics. A couple of these available on Seymour are
given below. If you are logged in to your account but not in
mail or anything else, you can access Seymour by typing this
command and then hitting [Enter]:
telnet seymour.md.gov
When you are asked for terminal type, just hit [Enter]. You
should then see a menu of choices. If you want to do something
like find the weather forecast for any city in the U.S. or
Canada, for example, arrow down to 7. Find a Fact and hit
[Enter]; then wait for a moment while Gopher retrieves the
directory. When it does, it will give you a new menu. Arrow
down to 5. National Weather Service and hit [Enter]. You will
then be asked to type the city of your choice. Do so, hit
[Enter], and you will see the local weather conditions followed
by the forecast for that city. To leave Gopher or to move around
within it, just follow the directions at the bottom of the
screen.
Besides the weather, you can also get other information on
Seymour. A couple of examples are given below. Remember that if
you ever get seriously stuck in Seymour, you can escape back to
your account by holding down the key and pressing ].
1) Electronic Books.
To access the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the King James
Version of the Bible, the Koran, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the
translated Canterbury Tales, and several other literary works, do
the following. At the initial Seymour menu (i.e. the same one
where you found 7. Find a Fact), select 10. Search the Internet.
Then select 2. Blacksburg Electronic Village Gopher, then 1.
Blacksburg Electronic Village Gopher, then 7. Books (donated by
the Eris Project), then select the work of your choice. To move
around quickly in these longer documents, consult Help (by typing
h) for some useful commands.
2) Chronicle of Higher Education.
Besides getting the current academic news, you can search the
classifieds for the perfect job. At the initial Seymour menu,
select 6. Find a Book or Article. Then select 11. The Chronicle
of Higher Education. If you want to mail yourself (or someone
else) a job notice, you can do so by pressing m when you reach
the bottom of that notice. When the box appears on the screen,
just type in your e-mail address and hit [enter], and Seymour
will send you a copy of the notice.
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UnCover
.
UnCover, a service of CARL, the Colorado Association of Research
Libraries, is an excellent method of locating journal articles
written since 1987 (or 1988, depending on the journal) and for
scanning the Tables of Contents of recent issues of journals you
are interested in. Many libraries have UnCover in their on-line
catalogs, and if yours does, then you can probably access it more
easily that way. (Ordering copies of articles from UnCover is
also cheaper through your library's version.) But if it doesn't,
you can still do all your searching through the CARL service
available on telnet. To access it directly from your account
(but not from mail), type the following command and hit [Enter]:
telnet pac.carl.org
Then just follow the directions on the screen. Keep in mind that
if you get lost or stuck, you can always escape back to your
account by typing //exit. UnCover works much like library on-
line catalogs do in that you locate publications by entering the
subject, author, or title. Looking at Tables of Contents of
journals involves entering the browse function, typing the name
of the journal and then selecting the issue you want to scan.
This UnCover feature can be quite useful in that you can see the
titles of the most recent articles of your favorite journals
without having to go to the current periodicals section of your
library. UnCover doesn't have the article, though, just the
title, author, and page numbers (enough for ordering it through
interlibrary loan).
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Wellcome Institute Library Database
.
The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine has now made
its library catalogue available via Telnet. It is a good source
for locating works on medical TOPics, including those in medieval
times. By using subject searches for plague and medieval
England, for example, I came up with an abundance of bibliograph-
ical information. To access the Wellcome Database type the
following and press [enter]:
telnet wihm.ucl.ac.uk
When you are prompted to logon, type a capital W and press
[enter]. After that, just follow the directions. If you get
stuck, you can exit back to your account by holding down the
key and pressing ].
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The Labyrinth
.
Labyrinth, a new service for medievalists provided by Georgetown
University, has the potential for becoming a very valuable
resource and no doubt will be in a short time, providing the kind
of ready access to medieval information which will make documents
like this one obsolete. It works well if your computer account
is on a Unix system, but if you have a VAX or a VM account, then
you may have some problems accessing the offered resources since
the newer WWW technology that Labyrinth is designed for doesn't
interface well with Telnet (which is the the way to get it from
VAX). If you do have a Unix account, you can get to Labyrinth by
issuing the following Go command when you are in your local WWW
server (e.g., Lynx, Mosaic):
http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/labyrinth-home.html
If you want to check it out from a VAX or VM account, type the
following from your system prompt, and press [enter]:
telnet guvax.georgetown.edu
(an alternate address is telnet axp1.georgetown.edu)
At the new screen you will be prompted for your username.
Instead, type lynx and hit [enter]. After a moment, you should
get the Georgetown Academic Computer Center Home Page. Press the
space bar once to get to the next page, and then using the down
arrow, arrow down to "Labyrinth, a disciplinary server for," and
when you have it highlighted, hit [enter]. You'll then see the
Labyrinth Home Page. Press the space bar once again, and on the
second page you will see a number of resource listings for
medievalists. Arrow down to the one you want to explore, and
when you have it highlighted, press [enter].
Remember that while you are in Labyrinth, pressing the space bar
moves you to the next page, the up and down arrows move you
backward or forward in the document from link to link, and the
left arrow moves you back to the previous menu. If the Telnet
doesn't disconnect you first (which it did to me frequently when
I tried to explore resources which involved leaving Labyrinth for
a second Telnet address), you can always leave Labyrinth by
pressing q for quit.
When the connections do work, however, Labyrinth provides access
to useful services. One example is the Word Search program of
the
University of Virginia Middle English electronic text collection,
which is an electronic concordance. To access it, follow the
directions provided above to get to the second page of Labyrinth.
Arrow down to the heading Medieval Studies Databases and Internet
Resources and hit [enter]; then press the space bar to move
forward a page, and near the TOP of the screen you should see a
heading, University of Virginia Text Center. Arrow down to the
subheading Keyword Search of Middle English Texts and again press
[enter]. Now go to the line indicated and enter a Middle English
word or phrase. When finished, arrow down one to Submit Query
and hit [enter], and you will be provided all the instances of
that word or phrase in the University of Virginia's corpus of
electronic Middle English texts. Thus, when I typed in "quod
Pandare," I was told I had made 12 hits (all from Chaucer's
_Troilus and Criseyde_) and was shown them one by one. When I
typed in "reverence," I was told I had made 96 hits from a number
of Middle English poems.
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Uploading and Downloading
.
Because you have limited space in your computer account for
storing documents and messages, you must eventually decide which
you want to keep and which to delete. For those you want to
keep, one useful option is to transfer them onto your hard disk
and into your word-processing program. This kind of transfer is
known as downloading. Uploading is the opposite; that is, it is
the process of transferring a file from your hard disk into your
computer account. Uploading is useful when you want to send
someone something over e-mail that you have stored as a file in
your word-processing program. By uploading the file, you save
yourself the trouble of retyping it before you send it. Since
different universities have different operating systems and
software packages for downloading and uploading, I will not go
into more detail than this. Do keep in mind, though, that these
are useful functions and that at some point you will want to get
someone to show you how to perform them.
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Using FTP
As a member of an academic discussion group, you will
occasionally read that you can get a file or document you want by
using ftp. Ftp (File Transfer Protocol) is a function similar to
(but separate from) Mail or Telnet in that it allows you to
communicate with remote sites. Specifically, it is a way of
locating and retrieving publically-available files stored
somewhere for your use. Let's say, for example, that you've
accessed the Library of Congress via Telnet and read in its
introductory information that you can obtain the 30-page Library
of Congress instruction booklet at ftp seq1.loc.gov in
/pub/LC.Online Here's what you do. When you are logged into
your account (but not in mail or telnet or anything else), type
ftp and hit the enter key. If your university has ftp, you will
get an ftp prompt which should look something like this: FTP>
Now type seq1.loc.gov and hit enter. You will get a message
asking for your name, but instead just type anonymous and hit
enter. (Note: If you don't get a prompt asking for your name,
type login or logon and hit enter. Then you should get a prompt
asking for your name.) You will then get a message asking for
your password, but instead type your e-mail name and address
(e.g. e7e4dun@toe.towson.edu). You will now be in the root
directory of seq1.loc.gov.
You now want to get in the subdirectory called pub, so type
cd pub and hit enter (cd means change directory). You will be
told that you were successful. Now you want the sub-subdirectory
called LC.Online, so you type cd LC.Online and hit enter. Once
again you will be told you were successful. Now type dir or ls
(for directory or list) and hit enter. You will see a list of
the files stored in the LC.Online subdirectory. To obtain the
one called quick-search.ascii, for example, type
get quick-search.ascii
and hit enter. You will be told that the transfer has taken
place, which means that the file has successfully been sent to
your account. Now you can type quit or bye and you will be
returned to your station. Check your directory or filelist and
you should see quick-search.ascii listed there. Follow a similar
procedure for all file transfers via ftp.
Remember that the ftp directories or subdirectories may be
case-sensitive (i.e. you have to use capital letters where they
do and lower-case letters where they do). Also, remember that
you cannot read the files when you are in the subdirectories.
Ftp only transfers files; it doesn't allow you to inspect them.
You can do that once you have the file in your own account (and
then if you find that it's not what you want, you can delete it).
Top of Document
Listserver Commands
.
The one-line listserver commands given below allow you to
communicate with the listserver (which is a program, not a
person), so that you can set the options you want your account to
have with the network. Remember to send your commands to the
network's listserver address (not its regular mailing address)
and to put nothing on the subject line.
NOTE: If you are trying to set your options with HEL-L,
OLDNORSENET, MEDGER, ARTHURNET, or MEDIBER, use the list of
commands given in section a below (even though Mediber gives its
listserver name as listserv). If you are setting options for
other networks, including ANSAXNET and most others, use the list
of commands in section b.
a. Commands for listservers that give their names as
listproc or listserver (e.g. Hel-l, Arthurnet, and Oldnorsenet):
SUB Listname Your Name (Subscribes you to a list, i.e. an
(e.g. sub hel-l joe blow) academic discussion group)
SIGNOFF Listname (Unsubscribes you from a list, or
(e.g. signoff hel-l) academic discussion group)
SET Listname (Gives you your current option
(e.g. set hel-l) settings for that list)
SET Listname Mail Ack (Sends you a copy of any message
(e.g. set hel-l mail ack) you mail to the network)
SET Listname Mail Noack (Posts your messages to the network
(e.g. set hel-l mail noack) without notifying you)
SET Listname Mail Postpone (Stops all network mail from coming
(e.g. set hel-l mail postpone) to your account until further
notice)
SET Listname Mail Ack (Resets all network mail to come to
(e.g. set hel-l mail ack) your account)
SET Listname Conceal Yes (Hides your name from review, i.e.,
(e.g. set hel-l conceal yes) makes you an "unlisted" sub-
scriber)
SET Listname Conceal No (Unhides your name from review)
(e.g. set hel-l conceal no)
REVIEW Listname (Sends you a list of subscribers
(e.g. review hel-l) to the network)
[For other listproc commands send to listproc@ebbs.english.vt.edu
the following command: HELP]
b. Commands for all listservers that give their name as
listserv--not listserver or listproc (with the exception of
Mediber, which uses the commands in a. above):
SUB Listname Your Name (Subscribes you to a list, i.e., an
(e.g. sub ansax-l joe blow) academic discussion group)
SIGNOFF Listname (Unsubscribes you from a list, or
(e.g. signoff ansax-l) academic discussion group)
SET Listname Ack (Listserver will notify you that it
(e.g. set ansax-l ack) has broadcast a message you sent to
the list)
SET Listname Noack (Listserver will broadcast the
(e.g. set ansax-l noack) message without notifying you)
SET Listname Rep (Listserver will send you a copy of
(e.g. set ansax-l rep) any message you send to the list)
SET Listname Norep (Listserver will cease sending you
(e.g. set ansax-l norep) copies of messages you send the
list)
SET Listname Conceal (Hides your name from review,
(e.g. set ansax-l conceal) i.e., makes you an "unlisted"
subscriber)
SET Listname Noconceal (Unhides your name)
(e.g. set ansax-l noconceal)
SET Listname Nomail (Stops all network mail from coming
(e.g. set ansax-l nomail) to your account until further
notice)
SET Listname Mail (Resets all network mail to come to
(e.g. set ansax-l mail) your account)
IND Listname (Sends you directory of network's
(e.g. ind ansax-l) available archive files)
HELP Listname (Sends you a list of commands)
(e.g. help ansax-l)
REVIEW listname (Sends you a list of subscribers
(e.g. review ansax-l) to the network)
GET (Retrieves specified file
(e.g. get descrip oe-call) from filelist)
For other listserver commands send to listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
this message: get listserv refcard
The preceding information was kindly shared with his colleagues
by
Edwin Duncan
Department of English
Towson State University
Towson, Maryland 21204
President
Texas Medieval Association
e7e4dun@toe.towson.edu
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