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Can we take a break already? Internet Time's whirling vortex of information spinning around the world at the speed of light is enough to rankle one's wits and distort the sense of reality. What we knew and believed yesterday is suddenly called into doubt by the fast-breaking news and events of today.

OK. Breathe deep. Exhale. Be with your breath. Let go of Internet Time and reflect a moment. Indeed, Internet Prospector 's merry band of editors has asked me to do just that on the occasion of IP 's 10th anniversary to pen this month's "Editor Note."

In 1994, some 15 researchers collaborated via e-mail to launch the monthly electronic newsletter, Internet Prospector. We followed the newsletter soon after with a Web site chronicling the best-of-the-best in Internet resources. What strikes me about that experience as I look back is not the Internet discoveries or the attention devoted to us by the press, but rather the relationships that formed between IP editors. Indeed, we cranked out the Internet Prospector virtually for several years without all the prospectors ever meeting in person.

Now, a decade later, I am no longer officially part of IP 's editorial staff. Yet I still feel connected, thanks to the Internet. The constraints of time and space collapse with a few strokes of our keyboards as we interact with people around the world. And, yes, it's easy to get caught up in Internet Time or to be distracted by the siren of technology.

Yet when the dust settles at the end of the day, the Internet is about people connecting with people. There's comfort in that.

	Randy Bunney
	Editor, Webmaster, 1994-99

LIVING IN THE FUTURE: A RETROSPECTIVE

At a conference years ago, researchers discussed using the Internet for research. Someone knew someone who knew something about chat rooms and bulletin boards.

A few years later, researchers were both using and creating Web sites. Tweaking modem switches and using Gopher, we were doing Internet research. And somehow, Internet Prospector zinged into being. Working together, volunteers gathered Internet resources for a monthly online 'zine, and Internet Prospector was sent out to PRSPCT-L subscribers.

Eventually, a Web site was launched, home to new and archived issues, with comprehensive information accessible through it. Internet Prospector mails monthly to a vast number of subscribers. (When did a hundred subscribers stop being a "vast number"?) From getting an occasional hit in a mainstream source, IP is now referenced at many reputable sites.

To provide information for future activities, researchers traverse the Internet, grabbing information as it happens, at its source, before it hits the printed or televised media. IP enables people to find and exchange data in faster and more efficient ways.

Internet Prospector was an early effort by individuals around the country to work together virtually to produce a vehicle of communication for their readers. For years, editors have produced IP while rarely meeting in person but communicating among themselves in minutes. Wherever one works, research sites are available, and researchers quickly exchange information about them. For ten years, IP has helped to bring researchers online and to offer them the latest research techniques and valuable research nuggets.

	Martha T. Murphy
	Editor, ACCESS column 1994-99

New Search Engine!

PROSPECTORS GULCH

Meet The Volunteers Who Bring You
The Internet Prospector 

CORPORATIONS Beverly Goodwin FOUNDATIONS Cathy Hampton INTERNATIONAL Cecilia Hogan PEOPLE Pam Patton

NEWS & ONLINE SPECIALS Pamela J. Smith TOOLS Chris Mildner Web Coordinator  Sheila Faris-Penn

Suggest an Internet nugget.
Write the Assay Office — credit to the finder. 

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