The key to using the Web for astronomy is ensuring efficient access to increasingly large amounts of information. Whilst the Web and the astronomical resources on it are not strictly regulated or structured, I have attempted to show that efficient access is possible. Without such guidelines the reverse can happen as described by Andernach (1998),
"However, the flood of information on the web has become so large that now, when searching for a given piece of information, we are about to spend more time in browsing the web than we used to need searching in the library a decade ago ..."
Each Web page of the on-line version of this paper has a date indicating the last time all URLs were successfully tested.
I would like to thank Heinz Andernach, John Pritchard and Mike Reid for information and comments on this article.
Andernach, H. Hanisch, R.J. and Murtagh, F. 1994, Publications Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 106, 1190. www.hq.eso.org/online-resources-paper/rrn.html
Andernach, H. 1998, "Internet Services for Professional Astronomy", IXth Canary Islands Winter School on Astrophysics, ``Astrophysics with Large Databases in the Internet Age'' (Nov. 1997), eds. M. Kidger, I. Perez-Fournon, & F. Sanchez, (Cambridge University Press), in press, xxx.adelaide.edu.au/abs/astro-ph/9807167
Heck, A. 1997, Ap. & Space Sciences, 247, 211.
Lawrence, S. and Giles, C.L. 1998, Science, 280, 98.
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Last updated: 6-Apr.-1999