The name given to a number of similar services that provide a means of allowing users to access information on a network. Most Usenet services rely on cooperative action by a number of server systems; these transfer newly entered information on one server to other distributed servers, where it will be accessed by users. The news items, usually referred to as messages or articles, are indexed to allow rapid searching for information relating to a specific topic. A newsgroup is a collection of Usenet messages that have been indexed as referring to a common theme, and are probably all held on a single server. The Usenet approach allows users to access information generated in other countries without the need to make international network connections.