Early correspondence about the site, showing email to be the main conduit of information, highlights how early this site was in the history of the World Wide Web.

"I propose to set up an information server to distribute the reports. The main distribution method will be via email, where people mail an account in the department and get the latest report sent to them. Other methods of distribution could include an ftp/gopher/WWW site and perhaps a daily posting to `rec.climbing'...

...Running the server this year in no way commits us to doing this again next year."

Mark Sanderson posting news of the new service:

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 09:08:06 +0000
Subject: Annoucment of Scottish avalanche server

Every year, the Scottish avalanche information service produces daily avalanche
forecasts for 3 of Scotlands most popular climbing areas: Glen Coe, Lochaber 
(Ben Nevis to you and me) and Cairngorm.  The service runs for 4 months starting
on Monday the 20th of December.

This year the forecasts are being sent to the department and will be available on
a mail server.  If you send an email messsage to 'avalanche@dcs.gla.ac.uk', the
latest avalanche forecast will be sent to you.  This server provides the fastest
ossible way of getting the reports, beating the newspapers by at least half a day.

All requests to the server will be logged, but this is mearly to give the
forecasters some idea how much use the server gets.

We have tested the system out over the past few weeks, but like anything new,
it could go wrong, still let's see how it goes.

Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 16:54:07 MET
From: "Jeremy Westerman, DPP, Ayr, DTN 7823-3193." 
To: sanderso@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Apparently-To: avalanche-request@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Latest forecast

I sent email to snowfall@dcs.gla.ac.uk and received the following message
rather than the avalanche report. Is this temporary or will this replace
the mailing of the report? As I do not have a direct Internet direct but
have to go through a gateway, I cannot connect to these services.

Thanks,

Jeremy Westerman
Digital
Ayr.

----------------------------------Message received:
Did you know that you can access this report via Gopher (spit) and WWW (yay!)
For Gopher (spit), connect to gopher.dcs.gla.ac.uk and look in the directory
pub/Avalanche.
For WWW/Mosaic (yahoo!), use the URL, http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/most_recent
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----

Reports updated daily & displayed locally in the climbing areas,
also available via recorded phone message at Inverness (0463) 713191
Problems with email should be directed to 'avalanche-request@dcs.gla.ac.uk'
Your request to the server has been logged, so we can get some idea of usage.

Scottish Avalanche                                           Glasgow University
Information Service                                Computing Science Department