When rats meet hearts: a gopher information server for cardiology

At the Department of Cardiology of the University of Vienna Medical School the authors have initiated a feasibility study to explore the advantages and limitations of a public access electronic information system. An Internet gopher information server VIE-CARGO that provides material related to clinical cardiology has been installed on a NeXT workstation (Internet address: gopher.kard akhwien.ac.at). The present system supports browsing and fulltext search of selected articles, abstracts of major cardiology journals, position papers, guidelines, reports of multicenter studies, and meeting highlights. It also includes pointers to other related Internet resources, including anonymous ftp archives and interactive access to library catalogues, such as the US National Library of Congress. Moreover, sample images and a drug database are to be included in the authors´ prototype system. The gopher server also offers a forum for the exchange of news items and statements from national and international societies in the field of cardiology. Directions of future developments may include the upgrade to a hypermedia server based on the World-Wide Web system and the implementation of an interactive text based virtual reality server