Ed Krol (born August 21, 1951) is the former network manager at the

National Center for Supercomputing Applications The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale computer infrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a ...

and the former assistant director of Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES) at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

. He is also the author of The '' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet'' and '' The Whole Internet (User's Guide and Catalog)''.

Background

Krol was born on August 21, 1951, and grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

. He received his B.A. from the University of Illinois and spent his entire career there.

Career

In 1985, Krol began working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). He was the network manager for the NCSA when the contract was received to establish the

NSFNet The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The p ...

, and led the team in the network development. He helped develop the Frequently Asked Questions format when he published the popular user's guide '' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet'' in 1987, which was funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

. In 1989, he became the assistant director for Network Information Services, Computing, and Communications Service Office at the University of Illinois. In 1992, Krol published ''The'' ''

Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog ''The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog'', by Ed Krol, was published in September 1992 by O'Reilly. The ''Los Angeles Times'' notes that the ''Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog'' was the "first popular book about the medium" and " ...

'', which was noted by the New York Public Library as one of its ''Books of the Century'' in 1995. The book was translated into over ten languages and sold over a million copies. This aided the worldwide acceptance and spread of the Internet. In 1999, Krol and Kiersten Conner-Sax published a sequel titled ''The Whole Internet User's Guide: The Next Generation.'' In 2002 Krol retired from the University of Illinois after working there for 29 years.

Works

* * * * * *

Awards

* Inducted into th
Internet Hall of Fame
2017

References

External links