Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online
The Library of Congress has several online offerings at this time, including a Gopher server, an online catalog, and an FTP archive. Others (dependent on budgets, staff, and so on) are in the works. Possible additions include a World Wide Webserver and publicly accessible WAIS databases.
The primary Net interface is the Library's Gopher LC MARVEL. MARVEL includes information about the Library and its hours, descriptions of its collections and services, employee information, and especially pointers to other information on the Net organized by subject. It includes Telnet connections to the Library's online catalog as well. Access MARVEL by Gophering to marvel.loc.gov, port 70 or Telnet to marvel.loc.gov; login as marvel.
The online catalog is also available directly by using telnet locis.loc.gov, no login needed. This supports both vt100 and 3270 emulations, but works much better using tn3270 emulation. LOCIS, as the catalog and related files are called, contains all of the Library's public files. There are online help and instructions on FTPing a more detailed search guide. Unfortunately, it is open only during the hours during which the Library is open. For the exact hours, please Telnet to locis.loc.gov and check the information screens.
The Library also supports an FTP site, which was its first offering to the Net. To access it, anonymous FTP to seq1.loc.gov. The predecessor of LC MARVEL was the directory /pub/Library.of.Congress. This directory still exists, but has been largely superseded by MARVEL and is not necessarily up to date anymore.