THE WORLD-WIDE-WEB - A REVIEW OF AN EMERGING INTERNET-BASED TECHNOLOGY FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF BIOMEDICAL INFORMATION

The Internet is rapidly evolving from a resource used primarily by the research community to a true global information network offering a wi de range of databases and services. This evolution presents many oppor tunities for improved access to biomedical information, but Internet-b ased resources have often been difficult for the non-expert to develop and use. The World Wide Web (WWW) supports an inexpensive, easy-to-us e, cross-platform, graphic interface to the Internet that may radicall y alter the way we retrieve and disseminate medical data. This paper s ummarizes the Internet and hypertext origins of the WWW, reviews WWW-s pecific technologies, and describes current and future applications of this technology in medicine and medical informatics. The paper also i ncludes an appendix of useful biomedical WWW servers.