The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture __________________________________________________________________ ISSN 1068-5723 March 22, 1993 Volume 1 Issue 1 SHANK V1N1 ABDUCTIVE MULTILOGUING THE SEMIOTIC DYNAMICS OF NAVIGATING THE NET Gary Shank Northern Illinois University (P30GDS1@NIU) Abstract This paper argues that Net communication is neither oral nor written, but semiotic. In order to support this claim, the article seeks to define and apply the ideas of abductive reasoning and the concept of multiloguing as a way to understand the semiotic nature of Net communication. Implications of Net communication are explored from this perspective. In addition, the article lists the most explicitly semiotic discussion lists and describes each briefly. Finally, the paper argues that a conscious understanding of abductive multiloguing will help us both navigate the Net and evolve a style of scholarship appropriate for the medium. Introduction One of the challenges of working and dealing with the Net is to understand it, and to understand how to use it in effective ways. The Net is many things to many people. For some, it is a way to get in touch and chat with other teens or young adults. For others, it is a way to talk to experts to determine how and why a particular damnable computer or program won't run properly. And for a growing segment of users, it is part of their scholarly life. It is the virtual culture of these scholars that interests me in this paper, and it is this group I hope to serve. I would like to further that project by talking with and about some of the key ideas of semiotics, and showing how semiotics and the Net are inextricably linked. In order to do that, I need to establish a bit of context. One of the most important projects of this century has been the effort to grasp the nature of language. In the 19th century, the science of linguistics was concerned with trying to find the historical roots of all modern languages and dialects. Saussure (1959) led the move away from this historical consideration by looking at language as a system of meanings where those meanings are arbitrarily coded by words and more systematically coded by networks of meanings. Jakobson (1957) and Hjelmslev (1963) developed systems of phonological and semantic oppositions that helped chart and codify the networks of meanings first described by Saussure. Eco (1984) extended the project of Hjelmslev to include communication in general (cf. Fiske, 1982; for a summary and sampling of some of the crucial trends and directions in the links between linguistics and communication theory). Lakoff & Johnson (1980) were able to bring our understanding of language and our basic modes of thinking together in their work on metaphor and thinking, building on the psychological work on communication and thinking of Vygotsky (1962) and Bakhtin (1981). At the same time that linguistics was expanding into its new realms, contemporary philosophers were focused on investigating the nature of meaning. Some, like Heidegger (cf. Guignon, 1992) and Goodman (1978) explored the relation of language and meaning. Others attempted to work out a pragmatic model of meaning (cf. Rorty, 1982; Trimbur & Holt, 1992; Pepper, 1942; Murphy, 1990). Finally, others attempted to work out a postmodern theory of meaning that would allow us to extend and push against the models of meaning created by the successors of Saussure (cf. Johnson, 1992; Feyerabend, 1975 Lyotard, 1979; Baudrillard, 1988). These two projects have now pervaded all scholarly fields. Meaning and language have been the focal concerns of inquiry in such areas as linguistics, the social sciences, and even the physical sciences. In fact, if we look at the trends listed above in a whimsical fashion, we could even say (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) that the intellectual preoccupation of 20th century linguists and philosophers has been to determine exactly how to "talk ourselves clear". In the spirit of that project, I would like to try to "talk myself clear" about the following; 1) the use of semiotic theory to enhance our understanding of the Net, and 2) documenting current scholarly activity about semiotics on the Net. The Nature of Multiloguing As we said earlier, this is the century of language. In line with that observation, we can further say that the paragon of language- in-use is the conversation. Linguists and philosophers, from Plato to Saussure, have insisted that the conversation, or language-in- use as speaking, is prior to and privileged when compared to other modes of communication (cf. Fiske, 1982; Saussure, 1959). Therefore, we should expect models of conversation to be incorporated in basic communication models. And this is what we indeed do find. For instance, in Roman Jakobson's version of communication (Jakobson, 1957), we find that any act of communication consists of a sender, a receiver, and a message. The message travels along some medium, or more precisely, is conveyed by the medium from the sender to the receiver. There are three basic types of conversation that can be described using the Jakobson model. First of all, there is the monologue. This is where there is only one sender, and one or multiple receivers who listen passively to the message of the sender. In academic settings, the lecture is the ideal model of the monologue. The lecture has its origins, by the way, in the medieval scriptorium, where the master read manuscripts to students who then copied the manuscript for their own use. Therefore, it was essential that the receivers be passive in this circumstance, in order that they could hear properly. The second type of conversation is the dialogue. In the dialogue, the sender and receiver take turns. This is the basic model of all dyadic oral communication. The third and final type of conversation is the discussion. In the discussion, we have one person who starts as the sender, and multiple receivers. While it is important for the receivers to take turns as senders, in the discussion the initial sender still retains control of the conversation. In most academic settings where the discussion form is used, the teacher serves as the initial sender and monitor and controller of the discussion. The initial sender retains his/her position of control because the conversation, as an oral form, depends on maintaining dyadic turn-taking, even with multiple sender-receiver combinations. In recent times, scholars like Derrida (1976) and his followers have challenged the idea of the conversation per se as the privileged unit of communication. Derrida, like Saussure before him, argues that sign usage, more than speech, is the basis for communication. And, as such scholars as Baudrillard (1988) and Barthes (1957) have shown, there is no simple translation of sign usage to any single communication model. Sign usage is like speech, in that there is the sender-receiver model in many cases. But sign usage can be like writing, where it is important to "read" signs that are already present and not currently being produced by a sender, and it is important to also "write" signs, by creating sign patterns that we hope will eventually be picked up by currently non-present receivers. Therefore, when we are dealing with semiotically informed models of communication, we need to go beyond (while still including) the conversational models of communication types. These concerns are particularly important for those of us who communicate via the Net. Is Net communication like conversation? Quite a bit. Messages on the Net tend to be informal, to be phrased in conversational form, and can engender a great deal of direct and dyadic interchange. Is Net communication like writing ? Absolutely. Messages are written instead of spoken. Nonverbal, gestural and articulatory cues, so important in speech, are missing (the whole notion of emoticons, like the famous "smiley" ":-)" are ways to try to introduce some of those oral contextual features into Net communication, but their success is limited at best). But the linguistic models of lecture, dialogue, discussion, and even text (the written model of communication) do not capture the dynamics of sign usage that characterizes Net communication. A new linguistic model is needed. Let me briefly suggest a model of sign communication that might describe Net communication. I call it the multilogue. In the multilogue, we have a number of players. We have the starter, or the initial sender, who starts the "thread" (a well- established Net term, by the way). Once a thread has been started though, it is no longer under sender control. This is because the mechanics of Net response do not require turn taking. From the oral side, it is as if everyone who is interested in talking can all jump in at once, but still their individual voices can be clearly heard. From the written side, it is as if someone had started writing a piece, but before he/she gets too far, people are there magically in print to add to, correct, challenge, or extend the piece. Therefore, what we have is a written quasi-discussion that has the potential to use the strengths of each form. Since the "feel" of Net communication is still oral, I think it is best to call this form of communication "multiloguing", to retain the link with its oral heritage. So far, in my effort to "talk myself clear", I have addressed the kind of "talk" that we do on the Net. Now, what about the notion of being "clear"? Abduction and Meaning Meaning is the key challenge of any scholarly activity. If we cannot determine what we mean, then we are nowhere. I want to argue that meaning has evolved in the scholarly world, and that the virtual community is poised at the brink of another evolution of meaning, one that is critically informed by semiotic ideas. For those readers who are semiotically sophisticated, I apologize in advance for the elementary and somewhat imprecise discussion of meaning and signs that will follow. But, given the broad readership of this journal, I want to be able to get across some fairly complex ideas to people who are intelligent and can follow an argument, whether they have a requisite background in semiotics or not. The traditional academic community, prior to the scientific revolution, equated the idea of meaning with necessity. If something was necessarily so, then it was by definition meaningful. The logical tool for discerning necessity was the deductive syllogism. As a brief reminder, and for later comparison purposes, let me offer the following rather mundane deductive syllogism about my beloved mongrel dog, Spuffy. We know for sure and certainly, let us say for the sake of argument, that all dogs bark. We also know that Spuffy is a dog. Therefore, we can certainly and absolutely conclude that Spuffy barks. Deductions such as these allow us to extend our realm of certainty both systematically and confidently. As such, deduction is a powerful tool for extending what we already know into what we might suspect but cannot be sure we know. Our traditional scholars believed that deduction was the only valid form of reasoning. The scientific revolution, as Peirce (1956) pointed out, was first a revolution in logic. Specifically, modern science was made possible by the work of logicians working centuries earlier, who argued for the validity of inductive modes of reasoning. Unlike deduction, inductive results are probable rather than certain, but they allow us to build tentative rules of truth from circumstances of observation. Let me re-phrase the earlier syllogism to reflect the logic of inductive inquiry. Let us suppose we have reason to believe that Spuffy is a dog. Furthermore, we observe that Spuffy barks. Now, we can claim that it is probable that all dogs bark, since we have some (limited) empirical evidence to that effect. This form of reasoning allows us to build rules for further inference, rather than depending on those rules to be true by fiat alone. In other words, I don't have to just accept that all dogs bark. I can turn to the world of experience, so long as I am willing to accept that the rules I get as a result are probable, rather than certain. The logic that informs semiotic thinking is related to the above forms, but nonetheless represents its own departure. Peirce (1956) called it abduction, and insisted that it represented the only other possible mode of reasoning that we could add to deduction and induction. Abduction allows us to reason from the experience at hand, to so as to understand that experience not as a unique phenomenon, but as a meaningful case of some hypothetical rule or principle. Let me illustrate abduction with one final syllogism. Suppose I mention Spuffy to you in a passing conversation. You wonder what sort of "thing" a Spuffy is. I then tell you that Spuffy barks (or you hear Spuffy bark from the other room). The syllogism now looks like this: Spuffy barks. Hmm, I believe that all dogs bark. Maybe Spuffy is a dog. Abduction is the basic logic of reasoning to a hypothetical meaning. Therefore, any discipline that has the issue of meaning as one of its central concerns will also be concerned vitally with abductive reasoning. One of the major areas that semiotics addresses is the issue of meaning. Semiotics, or the general theory of how things act as signs, is naturally concerned with meaning (cf. Peirce, 1956; Eco, 1976; Deely, 1990; Percy, 1957; Barthes, 1957; Sebeok, 1986; Uexkull, 1982; for a set of definitions and descriptions of the relation of semiotics to meaning). This is due to the fact that signs are generally not interesting in and of themselves, but in terms of what they stand for. In other words, signs are not data to be verified as to whether they are true or not, but are instead clues about what various things and circumstances could mean. The logic of signs can be further characterized as abductive logic ( cf. Hanson, 1958; Peirce, 1956; Fann, 1970; Kapitan, 1990; Tursman, 1987; Holland et al. 1986; for discussion on the general nature of abduction and abductive logic). When we look at actual inquiry that is grounded in abductive reasoning ( eg. Bonfantini & Proni, 1983; Caprettini, 1983; Cunningham, 1989; Ginzberg, 1989; Sebeok & Umiker-Sebeok, 1983; Shank, 1992; Shank, 1988; Shank, 1987), we see the emphasis on creating hypothetical patterns of understanding that allow us to move inquiry forward, not only theoretically and empirically, but conceptually as well. When we look at the task of inquiry at this point in history, it appears that we have a refined set of methods to determine whether or not certain claims are empirically true, but very little guidance in determining how to understand the nature and implications of those findings. The value of an abductively based semiotic model of inquiry is that issues of meaning and understanding come to the forefront. I want to conclude this section by claiming that much of the discussion that occurs on the Net is abductive in nature. There are a great number of postings that are strictly informational, and other posts that ask explicitly for information. But more often than not, discussions tend to be directed toward the implications of ideas, and toward casting a frame of reference to render puzzling findings and notions as intelligible. These activities are clearly abductive, since they end with meaning claims, and their purposes are to foster a shared understanding of circumstances and phenomena. Abductive Multilogues on the Net What happens when we combine the idea of abduction with that of the multilogue? I want to briefly argue that "abductive multiloguing" describes the most effective and unique forms of communication that occur among the scholarly community on the Net. Furthermore, this perspective of abductive multiloguing helps define and shape the emerging virtual culture of that community, allowing us to make some predictions about future growth and trends. The first thing that an abductive multiloguing perspective predicts is that scholarship in the virtual community will continue to be more and more interdisciplinary. This is the case for several reasons. First of all, discussions are inclusive rather than exclusive. Credentials are not checked at the door of most discussion lists, and so persons with varying interests are allowed to listen and participate. Therefore, rather than retreating into more and more specialized discussions, we can reasonably expect a topic to expand into wider and wider content realms, as people with different areas of primary expertise bring that expertise and its insights to bear on the discussion at hand. We can see this principle in operation via the following example. Suppose we eavesdrop on a list devoted to, say, Latin, (like the new list Latin-l@psuvm) where some of the members are carrying on a thread about mottos. In a real example, one person called in to ask for help of other list members in translating a sub rosa motto for a college. The motto, in English, was "creating the illusion of progress". The member did not ask for people to supply their credentials when offering a translation. Instead, they accepted the variant translations on their own merits, depending on expertise where and how they found it. In retrospect, the case on many lists is very similar to the creed of the first of the "hackers" in the early days of computing, when hacking did not connote illegal activities. These early hackers were respected for what they could do, not for who they were or for what degrees or credentials they could bring to bear. Some of this feeling lives in many, though not all, discussion lines. Furthermore, the very idea of the multilogue helps preserve this egalitarian atmosphere, since there is no "teacher" or primary "discussant" to either lecture or to lead and orchestrate the discussion. Since everyone comes into the discussion sequentially, everyone has equal access to being heard. Secondly, the multiloguing dimension allows members of the community to pull together disparate arguments and examples, file them electronically, archive and examine them, and pull them up for later reference, all with the perceived immediacy of oral speech. This can allow us to create a broader base of potential abductive "rules" to bring to bear to any relevant discussion. For example, let us suppose that I am carrying on a discussion about legends on a medieval list. I happen to remember about an interesting new urban legend from a folklore list which I had archived. This legend is a variant of the medieval legend under discussion. It is a simple matter for me to retrieve the urban legend from my files, and then re-transmit or paraphrase it in the medieval list, thereby making a point about legend that I might not have been able to make without the assistance of the folklore example. Again, the multilogue form facilitates this type of hyridization of information, since we expect and operate within a series of simultaneous and parallel sets of discussion in the typical multilogue setting anyway. Finally, the virtual community consists of people with wide- ranging interests and areas of expertise, and all members of the community have access, in principle, to the expertise of each other almost instantaneously. Let me demonstrate this last point with an actual example. Last spring, I had a student who was doing research on the Negro Leagues. In order to help her get access to information, I accessed Statlg-l@brownvm, which is a baseball discussion list. In a matter of days, I received an enormous amount of scholarly information from a list that ostensively is dedicated to informal discussion of baseball matters. But since the list is linked to the scholarly community, I was able to take advantage of that link. I might add that my student was designing an adult education curriculum unit on multicultural issues, and under normal scholarly circumstances, would probably have had a difficult time gaining such immediate access to such knowledge and expertise. But the link to the Net made it quite easy. The second effect that this perspective predicts is that more and more scholarly research performed on the Net will deal directly and centrally with issues of meaning. The last few decades have been labelled as the era of the "information explosion". We now literally have much more information than we can understand. As we continue to pool our knowledge across discipline boundaries, there is an emerging trend for comparing systems of understanding across those same boundaries. So,we tend not only to share facts, but also ways of looking at the world. For example, a chemist may send us information that we might be able to use, but equally importantly, that same chemist might share with us his/her way of looking at various aspects of the world. Since we learn much of what we know by modeling the behaviors and ideas of others, this promises to be a powerful system for sharing not only data but worldviews. Sometimes, the pursuit of meaning takes off on its own merry abductive way, leading to strange and unusual fruit. Just recently, a member of the Erl-l list on educational research accidently sent a private message, about the need to keep a refrigerator door shut, to the entire list. He/she immediately apologized, but several people failed to see the apology, and took the message as a cryptic message about the state of educational research today. Even now, the metaphor continues to expand, where people are considering the significance of the contents of the refrigerator, the fact that the door does not seal easily, and the amount of energy required to keep the food cold. On one level, this is an exercise in learned silliness, but at a much deeper level, it is an exercise in taking apart and examining the basic metaphors that hold the field together, and examining what happens when those fundamental metaphors are replaced. Again, the multilogue form helped to sustain and foster the abductive musings. The final prediction of the perspective is that the nature of the researcher in the virtual community will be drastically different from the more traditional researcher working in the non-virtual community. The abductive researcher is less like an experimenter and more like a detective (Shank, 1987). In fact, the abductive researcher is more of a hunter-gatherer. He/she learns to gather information and combine that information in bricolage fashion. These unique and interdisciplinary craftings of ideas and facts allow the researcher to work outside of strict theoretical boundaries, and to turn to the world of experience directly for guidance. Given the wealth of information available to the hunter-gatherer on the Net (3000+ lists on Bitnet alone), it should be no surprise that the virtual scholarly community will evolve individuals who will thrive on being able to juxtapose and combine seemingly disparate threads of information in order to yield new and exciting venues of insights. Furthermore, the medium allows for multiple and communal approaches to the juxtaposition of insights. All one has to do is to toss out a new insight, and more than likely a new thread will develop. Semiotic Scholarship and the Net The scholarly community on the Net is not just a topic for semiotics. In fact, there is a very active and lively set of discussion groups on semiotic topics. I would like to offer my own personal and subjective description of some of these groups. All addresses for these groups are in Bitnet format. Semios-l@ulkyvm: This list is dedicated to discussions of visual and verbal semiotics. Steven Skaggs, a professor of visual design at the University of Louisville, is the listowner of this group. This is the most explicitly semiotic of the discussion groups. It is a moderate to low volume list, with a fairly serious and informative tone. Some of the semioticians who have posted on this list in recent history include Joseph Ransdell, Peter Salus, Nathan Houser, Jean Umiker-Sebeok, Alan Harris, Bill Spinks, and Terry Prewitt. As you might have noticed, this list does tend to have a Peircean cast to it. Derrida@cfrvm: This list is dedicated to the ideas of Jacques Derrida and the process of deconstruction. This list can be quite lively, sometimes playful, and at times frankly annoying. To paraphrase Bob Scholes, a noted literary critic who is also on the list, posts here can be very smart and very silly. At times this list has tried to engage in active discussion of works by Evans and Attali, but these efforts have not coalesced into extensive efforts. This is a fairly high volume list, although volume is sporadic rather than constant. David Erban at Central Florida is the listowner. Pmc-list@ncsuvm: This is the list that distributes the journal Postmodern Culture in electronic format. This journal is published three times a year, and its quality is quite high. The journal comes out of the Comparative Literature Dept at North Carolina State. Pmc-talk@ncsuvm is a separate line that engages in discussion about articles in the journal or, most often, on some topic that is of interest to someone on the line. Volume on this list is fairly low. There are a number of other lines that might be of interest to the semiotically informed or interested. Medtextl@uiucvmd deals with medieval textuality and codicality, and is one of the most erudite and pleasant lists on the net. Qualrs-l@uga deals with all aspects of qualitative research in the human sciences, and very often the discussion on this lively and busy list turns to issues that are of concern to semiotics. Comserve@rpiecs has several discussion lists that are of interest, including Philcomm (philosophy of communication) Rhetoric, and the Electronic Journal Of Communication. Let me end this list with the following disclaimer: as anyone who navigates the net is aware, this listing is both only partial and is exceedingly temporal. The Net continues to expand, grow, and evolve, and the multilogue continues in its own omnidirectional manner. All I can finally recommend is to use one of these lists as an anchor to link you to the semiotic discussion on the Net. and then, like any anchor, it becomes useful when you can pull it in, and set sail in your own direction. Conclusion Tom Sebeok (1986), arguably the father of contemporary American semiotics, likes to compare semiotic interplay to a spider's web. The spider does not just use the web to secure food; it is also a means of communication with other spiders. When a spider trods upon those few strands that he/she knows are free from the adhesive that will secure unwary prey, those steps create vibrations. And those vibrations can be used to send signals to other spiders treading the web. Furthermore, the spider continues to weave the web, extending not only the range of sustinence and nutrition, but of communication as well. The person, according to Sebeok, spins "webs of interpretations" that extend out and beyond our immediate sphere of influence or even understanding. 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Jensen (Eds.), The philosophy of discourse: The rhetorical turn in twentieth-century thought, Volume 1 (pp. 70-94) Portsmouth, NH: Boyneton/Cook Heinemann. Tursman, R. (1987). Peirce's theory of scientific discovery. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Uexkull, J. von (1982). The theory of meaning. Semiotica, 42(1), 25-82. Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. _____ Articles and Sections of this issue of the _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ may be retrieved bia anonymous ftp to byrd.mu.wvnet.edu or via e-mail message addressed to LISTSERV@KENTVM or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU (instructions below) Papers may be submitted at anytime by email or send/file to: Ermel Stepp - Editor-in-Chief, _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ M034050@MARSHALL.WVNET.EDU _________________________________ *Copyright Declaration* Copyright of articles published by Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture is held by the author of a given article. If an article is re-published elsewhere it must include a statement that it was originally published by Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture. _________________________________ Editorial Board (EJVC Founders/Arachnet Moderators) (3) Ermel Stepp, Marshall University, Editor-in-Chief M034050@Marshall.wvnet.edu Diane (Di) Kovacs, Kent State University, Co-Editor DKOVACS@Kentvm.Kent.edu A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University, Consulting Editor PAPAKHI@@IUBVM Consulting Editors (17) Anne Balsamo, Georgia Institute of Technology ab45@prism.gatech.edu Patrick (Pat) Conner, West Virginia University u47c2@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU Skip Coppola, Applied Technology, Inc. skip%aptech@bagend.atl.ga.us Lydia Fish, Buffalo State College, SUNY FISHLM@SNYBUFVA.BITNET Cynthia J. Fuchs, George Mason University cfuchs@gmuvax.bitnet Stevan Harnad, Princeton University harnad@Princeton.EDU Edward M. (Ted) Jennings, University at Albany, SUNY EMJ69@ALBNYVMS Michael Joyce, Vassar MIJOYCE@vaxsar.vassar.edu or USERTFSG@UMICHUM Jay Lemke, City University of New York JLLBC@CUNYVM.BITNET Carl Eugene Loeffler, Carnegie Mellon University cel+@andrew.cmu.edu Willard McCarty, University of Toronto editor@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA James (Jim) Milles, Saint Louis University millesjg@sluvca.slu.edu Algirdas Pakstas, The University of Trondheim, Norway Algirdas.Pakstas@idt.unit.no A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University PAPAKHI@@IUBVM Bernie Sloan, University of Illinois, Champaign AXPBBGS@UICVMC.BITNET or b-sloan@uiuc.edu Allucquere Roseanne Stone, University of Texas, Austin success@emc.cc.utexas.edu Kali Tal, Viet Nam Generation kali@access.digex.com Associate Editors (23) Robert J. Beebe, Youngstown State University ad219@yfn.ysu.edu David W. Brown, Ball State University 01dwbrown@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU Kathleen Burnett, Rutgers University BURNET@zodiac.rutgers.edu G. Phillip Cartwight, University of California, Davis PCARTWRI@KENTVM Paulo A. Dasilva, Military Institute of Engineering, Brazil S9PAULO@IMERJ.BITNET Jan George Frajkor, Carleton University, Canada gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca Dave Gomberg, University of California, San Francisco GOMBERG@UCFSVM Lee Hancock, The University of Kansas Medical Center Le07144@ukanvm Mary Hocks, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaigne mhocks@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Nancy Kaplan, University of Texas, Dallas NKaplan@utdallas.bitnet Brendan Kehoe, Cygnus Support bk@well.sf.ca.us Joan Korenman, University of Maryland, Baltimore County korenman@umbc2.umbc.edu or korenman@umbc Steven D. Koski, St. Bonaventure University KOSKI@sbu.edu Sharyn Ladner, University of Miami SLADNER@umiami.IR.miami.EDU Lyonette Louis-Jacques, University of Chicago llou@midway.uchicago.edu Joseph Psotka, Army Research Institute PSOTKA@alexandria-emh2.army.mil Martin E. Rosenberg, University of Kentucky MROSE01@UKCC.uky.edu James N. Shimabukuro, University of Hawaii, Honolulu jamess@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Laverna Saunders, University of Nevada, Las Vegas saunders@nevada.edu David Sewell, University of Rochester dsew@TROI.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU Christinger (Chris) Tomer, University of Pittsburgh ctomer@vms.cis.pitt.edu or ctomer+@pitt.edu Stuart Weibel, OCLC stu@oclc.org Bob Zenhausern, St. Johns University drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu or drz@sjuvm.bitnet ____________________________ Anonymous FTP Instructions ____________________________ ftp byrd.mu.wvnet.edu login anonymous password: users' electronic address cd /pub/ejvc type EJVC.INDEX.FTP get filename (where filename = exact name of file in INDEX) quit LISTSERV Retrieval Instructions _______________________________ Send e-mail addressed to LISTSERV@KENTVM (Bitnet) or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU Leave the subject line empty. 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