Introduction to the Internet

Review basic terminology
- What is "The Internet"?
  - "The Internet" is a system used to connect computers, large and small, all over the world and allow them to talk to one another.
  - Probably the most-used services on the internet are E-mail and the World Wide Web. E-mail is a way to send anything from small messages to large documents and pictures from one computer to another. The World Wide Web (WWW, web) is a way to present text and graphical information in a readable format. It's kind of a combination of magazine, bulletin board, catalog and encyclopedia all in one. Today's class is going to cover the world wide web.
- Use the web
  - We use web browser software to access the web - Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator. Web browser software runs on your computer, and makes it able to gather information from other computers. Think of it like this - in the phone system, we need telephones and fax machines in order to be able to convert information to and from a format which can be sent over the telephone wires. Likewise with the Internet - the computer needs software to convert the information it gets from the internet to a form we can use.
    - Find the big blue e on your computer's desktop - it looks like the image at the right.
    - Move the mouse over it
    - Double click, using the mouse's left button
  - Parts of the browser - the browser is divided into three basic areas: Content, the Address Line, and Buttons and Controls
    - Content - this is the information which you want to see. There will be plain text, such as the information you're reading now, images and hyperlinks.
    - Address Line - Location of something on the Internet. It is toward the top of the screen. The ones on these computers will say either http://www.brittonkill.k12.ny.us or something similar to http://207.10.188.5 You type in the address you want to go to in the address line and the browser brings you to that Internet site.
    - Buttons and controls - can be used to help you move around and control the browser. The top line, the one with words in it, is known as a "menu bar". When you click on one of the words, you get a "drop down menu". Below it (on most of your browsers) are a series of buttons, the most interesting of which are, at the moment, "Back" and "Forward".
Brunswick Library's Home Page
- To go to our page, go to the address bar and click; it will turn blue. They type in www.brunswicklibrary.org and hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard.

Look at our home page and learn how to use it. You will hear the terms "page" and "site" used interchangably. Technically, they're not the same. A page is part of a site, which is a collection of pages at the same address and (presumably) with the same theme. And to confuse matters further, you will also hear a web site (a collection of pages) referred to as a "home page". "Home Page" generally refers to the page at which you enter a site. But all three are used interchangably.
Scrolling - frequently, not all of a page will show up on the screen at once. You will see a scroll bar, like the one in the picture at the right. You can put the mouse cursor over the bar, click and hold and move up and down (or sometimes side to side). Or you can click on the arrows at the top and bottom of the scroll bar.
Ways of navigating around the Internet - You're at a location, and you want to go somewhere else. We've already learned one way of going somewhere - go to the address bar and type the address in. However, one of the Internet's great advantages is that it can take you from place to place with a single click.
- Hypertext/links to go to other places on the Internet
  - Normally your pointer will look like one of the two left-hand images above. When you move it over a hyperlink, the pointer will change to a pointing finger, as in the center box, indicating that you can click there and go somewhere else. You will also see the "waiting" cursor on the right - it means that the browser is out getting information, and you need to wait for it.
  - Hypertext is generally blue and underlined, although not always; it can be other colors.
  - Other objects (graphics) can also serve as hyperlinks. The cursor will change from an arrow to a pointing finger when it passes over hypertext or a hyperlink.
  - Hypertext and hyperlinks allow you to connect to a different location on the Internet. Earlier we learned about typing an address into the address box; hyperlinks take us to a different location without having to type the location.
- Drop down box to reach other parts of the site
  <-Non-working sample
  - On the upper left side of all our pages is another way of navigating around many internet sites - the drop down box. You see a box with text in it, and an arrow pointing down next to it. Put the mouse pointer over it, click once, and a list of many of the places you can go appears. (If you want to find out what books came to the library last month, where would you go? Find the title of a mystery which came in last month.)
- Search box
  <-Non-working sample
  - Next to the drop down box is a search box for searching only the library's website. Move the mouse pointer over the box, click, and enter text to search for. Then click the search button to the right of the box. The result will be a page showing a part of the text on pages which contain what you're looking for, along with a hypertext link to take you to that page.

Upper Hudson Library System Catalog
- Our card catalog is always available to you over the Internet. You can access it from our website, by clicking on the button on the top of every page, or from Upper Hudson Library System's site at uhls.org/uhls/. You can use this catalog to search the collections of every library in Albany and Rensselaer Counties, as well as order books.
- Your pin number is the last four digits of your telephone number
To help look for information on books, try www.amazon.com
http://www.brunswicklibrary.org/webbooks.html for the webpage from an earlier class on book resources on the Internet
Other Internet Resources
- www.brunswicklibrary.org/internetResources.html - our own Net resources page
- whatis.techtarget.com - An Internet Dictionary
- foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk - a more technical Internet Dictionary
- www.mapquest.com - maps to about anywhere in North America and a number of other areas as well
- www.snoopy.com - Peanuts, the cartoon strip
- imdb.com - when you can't remember who starred with Myrna Loy in The Thin Man, the Internet Movie Data Base can be extremely helpful. (Hint - it wasn't Bogie)