Texas Woman's University and White House Communications on the Internet

Abstract

During the course of the 1992 United States Presidential campaign, electronic discussion lists were established on Bitnet which allowed "subscribers" to openly discuss issues relevant to each candidate's campaign. A discussion list was formed for each of the three candidates. In the summer of 1992, the Clinton and Bush campaigns began posting full-text documents (speeches, interviews, platform positions, etc.) to each respective list on Bitnet, making available information that was almost nonexistent in any other format to faculty and students at Texas Woman's University. It was soon discovered that these documents were available elsewhere, but only through the Internet, and they were readily accessible for the taking. Organizations such as the federally sponsored Hermes Project and the National Public Telecmuting Network (NPTN) also provided access to these documents. The reference department at TWU soon took advantage of this information, and with the realization that most of the university community was still alien to electronic file transfer and Bitnet discussion lists, decided to make these documents available in a more traditional manner by retrieving them either through the discussion list or through one if the their organizations providing campaign documents via the Intemet. This article documents the reference department as an instrumental part in using the IInternet in the acquisistion of these campaign documents both before and after the November election for use by faculty and students, as well as members of the city Denton, Texas.