MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, U.S.A., JUN. 21, 1993 (Newsbytes) -- At the recent Electronic Mail Association show in Atlanta, Radiomail chairman Geoff Goodfellow challenged journalists to file stories without wires, and promised some recognition to those who did so.

Well, we have a winner. Eric Arnum, editor of the EMMS newsletter, went from Atlanta to Memphis and actually filed a note from the grave side of Elvis Presley.

"It's not until you start using wireless messaging systems that you begin to see their limitless potential to change the way people use e-mail," he wrote. "These few paragraphs were written ad filed by the EMMS editor at the grave side of Elvis Presley."

"Using the RadioMail package and the RAM Mobile Data network, filing this bit of copy from Graceland was as easy as taking a photo of Elvis Presley's final(?) resting place. This wireless messaging technology is as much a breakthrough for e-mail as the pocket cellular phone was for telephony," he added.

"Admittedly, filing from the King's grave was part of a shameless publicity stunt done simply to qualify the editor for next year's RadioMail Users Group award for 'most unusual place' for filing an article," Arnum added. "But it illustrates an important point: it's hard to leave the office behind when it fits into a bag."

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930621/Press Contact: Eric Arnum, e-mail: earnum@radiomail.net on the Internet)

They've been around the net several hundred times by now, but just in case you missed them, here follow the first Internet email addresses ever for a President, Vice President, and Congress of the United States:

  Chairman Charlie Rose and Ranking Minority Member Bill Thomas of the Committee on House Administration announced today the pilot program of the Constituent Electronic Mail System.

  This groundbreaking new service will allow citizens to communicate directly with their Member of Congress by electronic mail. The House of Representatives has established an electronic gateway to the Internet, the vast computer network that is used currently by over 12 million people worldwide. Participating Members of the House have been assigned public mailboxes which may be accessed by their constituents from their home computers. In addition, many libraries, schools and other public institutions now provide, or soon will provide, public access to the Internet.

  The Members of the House of Representatives who have agreed to participate in this pilot program are: Rep. Jay Dickey (AR-07), Rep. Sam Gejdenson (CT-02), Rep. Newt Gingrich (GA-06), Rep. George Miller (CA-07), Rep. Charlie Rose (NC-07), Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (CA-13), and Rep. Melvin Watt (NC-12). These Members will be making announcements in their congressional districts within the next few weeks to make their constituents aware of the new service.

  The Constituent Electronic Mail System represents a significant effort by the House of Representatives to expand communication with constituents. With the tremendous growth of electronic mail over the past several years, and the increasingly inter-connected nature of computer networks, the new service is a natural addition to the current methods of communication available to constituents. At the present time, House Members involved in the pilot program will largely respond to electronic mail messages from their constituents by postal mail, to ensure confidentiality.

  Constituents of House Members participating in the pilot program who wish to communicate with those Members will be asked to send a letter or postcard stating their interest to the Member's office. The request will include the constituent's Internet "address," as well as that constituent's name and postal address. This process will allow Members to identify an electronic mail user as his or her constituent.

  The pilot e-mail program will continue until sufficient feedback from participating offices has been collected to allow improvements and modifications to the system. When House Information Systems and the Committee on House Administration are satisfied that the system is sufficiently error-free, other Members of the House will be allowed to add this new service as technical, budgetary and staffing concerns allow.

  For more information, Internet users are encouraged to contact the House of Representative's new on-line information service. Please send a request for information to CONGRESS@HR.HOUSE.GOV.

Charlie Rose (D-NC)

Date: 05 Jun 1993 14:48:14 EST
From: CONGRESS@HR.HOUSE.GOV
Subject: Welcome to the Constituent Electronic Mail System

    We welcome your inquiry to the House of Representatives Constituent Electronic Mail System. Currently, seven Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been assigned public electronic mailboxes that may be accessed by their constituents. This effort represents a pilot program that will be used to assess the impact of electronic mail on Congressional offices and their mission of serving the residents of a Congressional District. This initial project will be expanded to other Members of Congress, as technical, budgetary and staffing constraints allow.

    Please review the list of participating Representatives below, and if the Congressional District in which you reside is listed, follow the instructions below to begin communicating by electronic mail with your Representative. If your Representative is not yet on-line, please be patient.

Hon. Jay Dickey
4th Congressional District, Arkansas
Rm. 1338 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Hon. Sam Gejdenson
2nd Congressional District, Connecticut
Rm. 2416 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Hon. Newton Gingrich
6th Congressional District, Georgia
Rm. 2428 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Hon. George Miller
7th Congressional District, California
Rm. 2205 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Hon. Charlie Rose
7th Congressional District, North Carolina
Rm. 2230 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Hon. 'Pete' Stark
13th Congressional District, California
Rm. 239 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Hon. Mel Watt
12th Congressional District, North Carolina
Rm. 1232 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

    If your Representative is taking part in the pilot project, we encourage you to send a letter or postcard by U.S. Mail to that Representative at the address listed above requesting electronic mail access. In your correspondence, please print your name and INTERNET ADDRESS, followed by your postal (geographical) address. When your Representative receives the letter or postcard, you will receive a reply by electronic mail that will include the Representative's Internet address. After you receive this initial message, you will be able to write your Member of Congress at any time, provided you follow certain guidelines that will be included in that initial message.

    We are aware that it is an inconvenience for electronic mail users to be required to send a post card in order to begin communicating with their Representative. However, the primary goal of this pilot program is to allow Members to better serve their CONSTITUENTS, and this initial postal request is the only sure method currently available of verifying that a user is a resident of a particular congressional district.

    In addition, constituents who communicate with their Representative by electronic mail should be aware that Members will respond to their messages in the same manner that they respond to most communications from constituents. That is, Members will generally respond to messages by way of the U.S. Postal Service. This method of reply will help to ensure confidentiality, a concern that is of utmost importance to the House of Representatives.

COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS

    Please feel free to send electronic mail comments about our new service to the Congressional Comment Desk, at COMMENTS@HR.HOUSE.GOV

    We will make every effort to integrate suggestions into forthcoming updates of our system.

    Thank you again for contacting the House of Representatives' Constituent Electronic Mail System. We are excited about the possibilities that e-mail has to offer, and will be working hard to bring more Members on-line and to expand our services. We feel that this pilot program is an important first step, and we urge your cooperation and continued interest to make the program a success.

    This message will be updated as necessary.

Honorable Charlie Rose (D-NC)
Chairman
Committee on House Administration

ST LOUIS, MISSOURI, U.S.A., JUN. 18, 1993 (Newsbytes) -- It sounds too good to be true -- open DRANET, an Internet-linked service offering magazine full-text and index databases, and new databases from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. Technically, any Internet account can access DRANET, and any DRANET subscriber can access other Internet services.

But wait. This is too good to be true, admits Joe Bonwich of DRA. DRANet has just 50 members, all of them university libraries. To access the service, you must have a Z39.50 client software package and Internet connection. Despite the fact that increasing numbers of homes and businesses have Internet access, "You can't get to it from a home computer. It's a library to library, host to host system. It's set up so libraries can tap into periodical indexes and share databases."

And that won't change. "We don't sell it to businesses. The product is available only to libraries right now. Businesses are tricky. There are some PC-based systems setting up client Z39.50 access. If they have that the business can purchase access from that. You can call for a price from us." The price is in the thousands to access the network, and add-in prices of $500-$2,000 per year for the databases. Butler University in Indianapolis and the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Public Library are the latest libraries to subscribe to Open DRANET, bringing the total to 51. But despite the name, it's not that open.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930618/Press Contact:Joe Bonwich, Data Research Associates, 314-432-1100)

The BARRNetter Electronic "Heard on the Net" is published by BARRNet, The Bay Area Regional Research Network, Pine Hall rm. 115, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. Comments and submissions welcome.

Editor: John Hoag (jhoag@barrnet.net). Contributing Editors: Nora Lundin (nora.lundin@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU, BARRNet; Newsbytes (NB) News Network, Wendy Woods, Editor, 822 Arkansas St., San Francisco, CA 94107.

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Redistribution in any form prohibited without permission.