Address and bibliography databases

NA-NET is a community of numerical analysts and other researchers who communicate through a common email facility. NA-NET is supported by a mail-forwarding database and a Whitepages Database. The mail-forwarding database gives users an easy method of communicating with each other through the use of a uniform email address. This feature avoids the problem of having to remember an individual's specific email address. Mail to an NA-NET member can be addressed to na.<key>@na-net.ornl.gov, where <key> is the member's NA-NET key. The key is usually the member's last name, possibly prefixed by the first letter of the first name. The mail-forwarding database also serves as the distribution list for the NA-NET News Digest. To join or use NA-NET, use the email interface to NA-NET. See Section 2.2.3 for further details.

The NA-NET Whitepages is a directory service that allows NA-NET members to find out more information about other members. Anyone can join the Whitepages, but NA-NET members are especially encouraged to join. The Whitepages can be accessed by means of the NA-NET Whitepages email interface, the netlibget command-line TCP/IP client, or the Who button on the Xnetlib client. Currently, the Whitepages can be joined only through the email interface. See Section 2.2.4 for further details.

The SIAM Membership Directory is a separate directory that is copyrighted by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Queries to the NA-NET whois service that do not find an entry in the NA-NET Whitepages database are referred to the SIAM list. Although the membershp list itself is secret, you may download an encrypted form of it, along with software that allows you to look up individual entries keyed by last name or phone number[6]. This allows some attractive caller-id features if your phone is connected to your computer.

Another service hosted by Netlib is the Bibnet project led by Stefano Foresti and Nelson H. F. Beebe of the University of Utah. This project will make available a bibliographic database in the field of scientific computing, populated by user contributions. Once this project is well underway, it will become easy to keep paper references up to date, even as preprints turn into published papers, and to locate online versions of published papers.