This is because we are used to search engines we can access immediately that produce short but informative summaries of each document's content.

Not so Gopher. First of all, it's difficult to access Gopher. You key in the URL (which, incidentally, begins with "gopher," not "http"), and when the Gopher form appears, type the subject you're seeking into the search box. Then you wait. And wait. You may very well get Dat Ole Debbil "Sorry, connection refused by the server..." message. Or, eventually, the information will pop up, though it can take a long time.

Once it does, the search results are described so tersely you often have to actually visit the documents to get an idea what they are.

Despite these drawbacks, Gopher does have merit. Conventional search engines mostly deal with Web pages, but Gopher sites can contain files, reports, transcripts and documents that are not yet incorporated into Websites. To learn more about Gopher, check out this Gopher site for a plethora of information.