The communications revolution

The Internet has been transformed within the last five years from an academic tool to a resource that promises to revolutionise the way we all communicate and retrieve information. The catalyst for these developments can be traced to the appearance of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the user-friendly graphical interface it presents based on hypertext links. There is already a large database of information available on the Internet on virtually any subject matter. The Internet has been described as the 'human encyclopaedia', and indeed, in the future it will be routinely used to retrieve information. The Internet is still in an embryonic form and there are several issues that need to be resolved, however, it is a communication medium that we will all be using within the next decade. Perhaps a more tangible indication of the importance of this technology is the significant commercial investment being made into both software and hardware. This article will attempt to explain what the Internet is, how it works, and how it can be used, with an emphasis on the resources available for pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists.