ICOM started using the Internet as a means for self-service
access to its core documents at a time when it was by no means
clear that the Web would attain its current prominence. It was
clearly stated at the outset that the "ICOM Document Repository"
was intended, "to provide material to as large a segment of the
global community as possible."

The initial structure of the repository was therefore such that
any document in it could be located and retrieved via e-mail,
FTP, Gopher or the Web. Surprisingly, the e-mail retrieval
service was almost never used. Although it remains in operation,
it is not maintained actively and only the older documents can be
accessed by it. Similarly, with the Web's ascendancy the Gopher
service fell into disuse and was subsequently terminated. The FTP
engine, however, is still in frequent use and may be used for the
retrieval of any document in the repository which, for whatever
reason, cannot conveniently be obtained directly via the Web.

The entire repository is available from mirror sites on several
continents: two in Europe, two in North America, one in
Australia. Additional mirrors in Africa and Asia will hopefully
be in operation by the time of the October conference. The parent
site has a massively wide and reliable connection to the Net, as
do most of the mirrors. Any suggestions about further measures
for overcoming bandwidth constraints will be gratefully received.

Until a few days ago, the repositories consisted entirely of
documents of relatively small size. However long tranfer times
might have been, nobody found it worth the effort to complain
about them. This situation has now changed. The Handbook is a
prodigious mass of interlinked files and its successful viewing
(regardless of the mode of transfer) is utterly dependent on
software that supports HTML frames. As far as I am personally
concerned, this latter device causes much more trouble than it is
worth. Any successful document using it must provide transparent
means for viewing in an environment that does not support frames.
In this sense, the present version Handbook is clearly
inadequate. In fact, it is beset by a number of additional
technical shortcomings.

The alternatives at this point would have been to keep the thing
off the Net, entirely, while the producers modified it to provide
support for a broader range of viewing environments, or as was
done, to make the document available to anyone who is capable of
utilizing it in its present state. The paradox here -- the real
bone of contention -- is that the document's explicitly labeled
target group is among the more likely to have technical
difficulty in utilizing its contents. Despite this, a hardcopy
version of the Handbook is at public disposal and anticipated
access constraints to the current electronic version therefore
provided no justification for abstaining from its release.

Frames are a legal feature of HTML and the Web contains
countless documents that use them with varying degrees of
success. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a Web version of as
intricate a document as the Handbook without them. Nonetheless,
its designers would be well advised to incorporate a frames free
text and graphics alternative in a future version. Rest assured
that this advice has already been conveyed and that a more
flexible Handbook Mark II is very likely to make its appearance.
If this should prove too difficult, at the very least, a PDF
version of the hardcopy version will be made available.

In the interim, and with the admission that my not having done so
at the outset was an outright blunder, I will be adding the usual
"Frames capability needed" label to the links to the Handbook.

Cary Karp
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