Info request on establishing GRASS Locations/Mapsets

[Thaddeus Bara]

We are novice GRASS users who have recently installed GRASS on one of our
workstations.  We are currently without manuals (except for ftp versions), and
do not expect to receive same for several weeks yet.  We have exercised some
of the spearfish data in order to ensure our installation was correct, and to 
become familiar with GRASS functionality and command structure.  We are now in
the position of wanting to establish a Location/Mapset for some of our own data.
We have, so far, run into a basic obstacle on defining the region.  We would
greatly appreciate if someone could take the time to briefly outline the 
protocol of commands to establish a new Location/Mapset (independent of
spearfish/PERMANENT), set the extents and projection of this Mapset, and import
data in the form of rasters and site lists that are not in GRASS format.
Thank you for any responses and assistance.

Thaddeus J. Bara
Research Scientist
NOAA/National Climate Data Center
Asheville, NC
tbara at ncdc.noaa.gov