Community Networks: Assorted Articles

Kim Gregson
School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University
1996, 1997

Assorted Articles

"What are we doing on-line?", a discussion with John Perry Barlow, Swen Birkerts, Kevin Kelly, and Mark Slouka, in Harper's Magazine, August 1995, p. 36-46.

Abate, Anne and Rosemary Young, "Community Access Bulletin Boards: Cincinnati Librarians Become Involved" in special libraries, Spring 1992, p. 113-117.

This article descirbes "TriState Online" a community information service that began operationin January 1990 and librarians efforts to create a library center with services for librarians and patrons city-wide.

Anderson, Robert H., and Tora K. Bikson, Sally Ann Law, Bridger M. Mitchell,

UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO E-MAIL: Feasibility and Societal Implications
URL: http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR650/
An excellent RAND study on the implications of universal access, including a chapter on the social implications of civic networks.

Avis, Andrew, Public Spaces on the Information Highway: The Role of Community Networks

URL: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/GNST/theses/avis/thesis.html
This is Andrew's masters thesis from August 1995.

Baker, Paul, The Development of Community Information Infrastructure Through Leveraging Of Community Resources,

URL: http://ralph.gmu.edu/~pbaker/ch5.html
This paper, presented at Telecommunities 1995 conference (no date or place given), reports the progress of a pilot project the author undertook in Washington, DC in 1995 to show how successful cooperation between agencies and organizations can promote the development of networking infrastructure. He found that the schools involved did not want to foot the extra costs. The libraries involved got funding but did not want to participate. He found that schools have much of the hardware necesary to get on-line, but that perceptions of the schools in the community may been to be changed in order to maximize its usefulness.

Barndt, Michael, Building a Structured Local Information Resource On-Line

URL: http://www.laplaza.org/cn/local/barndt.html
This article looks at a model for building local content on a community network. Examples are drawn from a community network being built in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This article describes several types of content being constructed for that system such as a community map and demographic database system, a community memory system, and on-line education. The emphasis in the content is on local material - locally produced and locally oriented. - to strengthen the local community. The system builds upon an inventory of community resources that is as inclusive as possible and easy to maintain. Local non-profit organizations can use the network to be more proactive, to organize with other non-profits globally and to increase communications with local related organizations. A central community calendar can help organizations coordinate special events if it is up to date and well-organized. Michael Barndt (414) 962-5634 Associate Professor, Urban Studies, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Bolton Hall 516 or Box 413, Milw. WI 53201 Consultant, Milwaukee Associates in Urban Development (MAUD) (Soon to be the Non Profit Center of Milwaukee, Inc.) Neighborhood Data Center, 750 N. 18th, Milw. WI 53233 mbarndt@csd.uwm.edu http://www.uwm.edu/People/mbarndt/mindex.htm

Beamish, Anne, Communities On-Line

URL: http://alberti.mit.edu/arch/4.207/anneb/thesis/toc.html
This is a very well-organized collection of definitions and review of the literature. Community networks in general have three goals - to increase communication in order to strengthen the sense of community, to improve the flow of information about political issues to create more informed voters and so improve democracy, and to ensure that the whole community is part of the new national information infrastructure. She points out that we still need to determine what models work and why in community networks, what impact these networks can really have, and how we can increase communication on the net. We need to determine these things in order to answer the ultimate question of how can we enhance the sense of community in on-line community networks. She points out that there needs to be active involvement by local government officials and bureaucrats in order to increase the political awareness of the citizen-users. Local business interests also need to be involved. They are a part of the community, and they will often pay to put information on the system. Their fees can help subsidize use by citizens. She devotes a chapter to evaluating the success of the network. This is a topic not dealt with in depth by other writers. Network organizers can use quantitative measures such as the number of subscribers or the types of services used most. This raises the question of how many subscribers, and from what groups in the community, does the network need to be considered successful. They can also use qualitative measures, such as stories from users about how using the network has improved their life.

Burrows, Jeffrey, An Overview of Community Information Networking , no date given.

URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jey/cominfo.htm
The author is the senior network analyst for the Strathkelvin District Council. This is a fairly general article about community networks. One interesting section mentions that systems should not be local government centered, but instead should focus on the users, their needs and their view of government and the community. He suggests a FAQ interface - arrange information to answer specific scenarios that a user may bring to the system. He also points out that information is not useful if it is not accurate and up-to-date.

Cohill, Andrew, and Andrea Kavanaugh, Community Networks: Lessons learned from Blacksburg, Virginia. Boston: Artech House, 1997.

This book is an indepth look at the Blacksburg Electronic Village with articles on evaluating the network, creating a history of the network, and the technology involved.

Cisler, Steve, Community Networks

URL: http://www.well.net/mwec/political/290.community.html
From the Whole Earth Catalog. In this brief overview article written in mid-1994, the author presents some of the basic uses and system setups of community networks in existence at the time.

Cisler, Steve, Can We Keep Community Networks Running?"

URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1995/jan/cisler.html
This brief article is from volume 2, number 1 issue of Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, January, 1995, p. 6. He presents a short analysis of some problems facing community networks today. These problems include a lack of stable ongoing funding, competition from other organizations with more resources, not being able to keep up with increasing expectations of the system in the community, and not being able to meet the goal of serving all users. He makes several suggestions to sustain these networks. He recommends being as inclusive and representative of your community as possible and making alliances with government agencies, schools, and businesses in the community. He also suggests that community networks need to look for commercial services they can offer in order to provide funding that will let them subsidize other services or access.

Cisler, Steve, Community Computer Networks: Building Electronic Greenbelts, 1993.

URL: ftp://ftp.cni.org/CNI/documents/illinois.dpc/text/cisler.txt
This paper, written 6/20/93, is in a directory of files that were presented at the 30th Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing at the University of Illinois. He stresses that what makes community networks different from national internet service providers or other types of networks is their emphasis on local information, on local users, on local issues. He mentions some of the social aspects of community networks such as being able to tailor news for the special needs of a small group, such as a geographic community or neighborhood. One feature that will help ensure success for a new community network is to include people from many groups in the community.

Civille, Richard, Miles Fidelman, and John Altobello, A National Strategy for Civic Networking: A Vision for Change, October, 1993.

URL: gopher://gopher.civic.net:2400/00/ssnational_strat/national_strategy.txt
The authors present a picture of where community networks can fit into the National Information Infrastructure and detail many benefits that these networks could provide which would result in significant monetary benefits for the community and for the nation. He calls for research on computer use in the US at both home and school, for projects that promote civic participation. The authors call for projects that help small businesses use the net to talk with each other and their customers in order to revitalize economies.

Coate, John, Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building Online Community 1993.

URL: gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/00/Community/innkeeping
This is a good article for understanding many of the social dynamics that need to be supported on forums provided by community networks. Features need to be added to help people find information, to support conversations that can become rancorous, to support new users, to prevent any group of users from being harassed by other groups. The innkeeping analogy is apt - forums are like inns and the people running these forums want to keep them as pleasant as possible to encourage business. This article points out several ways that this can be done. One of the more important ones is having a human host for each forum - someone who will greet newcomers and answer their questions, who can both spark the conversation and cool down heated arguments. Organizers of these forum need to realize that theirs is a difficult job - to create a community from rugged individualists, dispersed geographically, with a wide variety of interests and opinions.

Communications as Engagement, 1994.

URL: http://www.cdinet.com/Millenium/Report/report.html
This report deals with revitalizing communities through increased participation and communication by ordinary citizens in those communities. Groups involved in this new communication need to come from many walks of life, many economic classes, many political ideologies, etc. These groups are often geographically isolated from each other and don't often meet at work or schools. Community computer networks are one way to bring these disparate groups together.

Community Development Foundation and the National Working Party on Social Inclusion (INSINC) The Net Result - Social Inclusion in the Information Society

URL: http://www.uk.ibm.com/comm/community/uk117.html
This report was prepared by the Community Development Foundation and IBM.

Cosgrove, Darin, Back on Course: How Freenets can Help to Steer Community Television Towards its Original Vision, 1994.

URL: http://www.carleton.ca/~jweston/papers/cosgrove.94
This paper is part of the Carleton University Working Papers in Communications Technology and Culture. The author looks at how many of the same claims made about the democratizing effect of community networks are similar to those made in the past about community television. He suggests ways that community networks can build on community television to strengthen both communications channels. Many of the examples focus on Canadian freenets and television but the ideas and suggestions are applicable anywhere. One problem with community television is that they went for high production values, which eliminated many locally produced shows. This could be a problem with community networks too - if they indulge in java enhanced shockwave powered web pages, they risk losing many low-end users who want information cheap and fast. The goal of these community resources is to help people be producers of information as well as consumers - if the media aim for the high-end production values, the majority of people can not participate and their ideas are lost.

Das, Malabika, Community Networks: Network Notes #28, 3/31/96, Information Technology Services, National Library of Canada

This looks at the current purposes aand typical content, and then presents details about Community Memory, Big Sky Telegraph, Cleveland Free-Net.

Doman, David, MAGGIE'S Place: Connecting with the Community at the Pikes Peak Library District, 1993.

URL:ftp://ftp.cni.org/CNI/documents/illinois.dpc/text/doman.txt
Presented at the 30th Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing at the University of Illinois. The author works for the Pikes Peak Library District. The library district has, since 1978, used terminals in the libraries to provide access to community oriented information, at first primarily information about social services agencies, but now the on-line databases include information about local artists and arts-related groups, a calendar of community events, a list of child care providers, a list of clubs - professional, social, civic, and childrens' groups such as the Scouts, a list of educational opportunities in the local area, a list of local writers, a database of local government documents, and a list of local social and economic indicators. He also mentions throughout the article the effects of different funding cuts and opportunities for volunteer labor. These databases are maintained and used regularly. They serve a real need in the community - a need that probably exists in most communities.

Doctor, Ronald D. and Hardy, Christa V., Democracy and Governance in Computerized Community Information

URL: http://www.laplaza.org/cn/local/doctor2.html
The most successful community networks these researchers studied were governed in a more democratic manner. Other less successful systems were controlled by an elite board. They surveyed more than 30 networks to determine how they were governed. They use the three fundamental criteria and the two principles of democratic associations from political scientist Robert Dahl as the framework for their survey.

Durrance, Joan, Reinventing the Community Information Professional: Strategies and Approaches Used to Develop Community Networking Knowledge

URL: http://www.si.umich.edu/Community/ahseCN_paper/anseCN.html
This papers discusses the community networking component of the University of Michigan's School of Information program as well as skills and activities that professionals involved in community networking can take to strengthen those networks.

Durrance, Joan C and Schneider, Karen G., Public Library Community Information Activities: Precursors of Community Networking Partnerships

URL: http://www.laplaza.org/cn/local/durrance.html
Public libraries have been storehouses of community information for many years. The knowledge of how to organize and represent that information should be sought by community network developers from local librarians. Community resources are more difficult to obtain and classify than traditional print materials; librarians have developed sources of local knowledge that can be put on-line.

Durrance, Joan and Charles Hansen and Sheryl Knox, The Flint Community Networking Initiative: Developing a Map, a Model, and a License, presented at the Ties that Bind: Converging Communities conference, 5/2-5/1995

URL: http://www.sils.umich.edu/Community/ttb.html

Falling Through the Cracks: A Survey of the "have nots" in Rural American, Department of Commerce, July 1995

URL: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fallingthru.html
This is a government study of the information "have nots" in the United States, primarily in rural areas and central cities. The "have nots" include the young and the old, those with less education, the poor, racial minorities, and in general in the South and in the central cities of the Northeast. However, government research has shown that given the opportunity the people in these groups are more likely to make use of on-line information.

Fernback, Jan and Brad Thompson, Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?, 1995.

URL: http://www.well.com/user/hlr/texts/VCcivil.html
This paper was presented at the International Communication Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 1995. The author suggests that virtual communities (people brought together by interest rather than just geography), with computer mediated communications may let the participants complain about their real life community, a community they have little chance of positively effecting. The real world power structure is not likely, in the authors' estimation, to quietly give up power to virtual communicants. They believe that the social and political structure will need to be altered before any technological innovations can have effect.

Floridi, Luciano, The Internet as a Disinformation Superhighway, 1995.

URL: http://www.well.com/user/hlr/texts/disinfo.html
A revised version of paper that was originally presented to an international conference, promoted by the UNESCO Philosophy Forum, in Paris, on 14-17 March,1995. One-way communications such as broadcast television and radio can easily be used to spread incorrect information because there is no way to question material presented. The internet is a mass media that allows many-to-many communication. Many believe that because of this, it will not be possible to use the internet to spread disinformation. Information can be disinformation if it is presented with no objectivity (such as propaganda), if it is intentionally left incomplete, or if it reflects a lack of pluralism as in censorship. He mentions the spread of messages about a virus spread by e-mail as an example of internet-spread disinformation. To help prevent the spread of disinformation, the author suggests several possible mechanisms, including some way to certify the quality of information, through having a wide variety of information sources available - many types of providers representing a range of viewpoints, and through increased education of individual users so that they get better at recognizing possible misinformation.

Foster, Derek, Can We Have Communities in (Cyber)Space?, March 1995

URL: http://www.carleton.ca/~jweston/27523/papers/foster.html

Freenets and the Politics of Community in Electronic Networks

URL: http://www.usask.ca/library/gic/v1n1/graham/graham.html
This article appeared in the Summer, 1994 (the first) issue of the online joural Government Information in Canada at URL: http://www.usask.ca/library/gic/contents.html. He reviews the history of free-nets, focusing on their development in Canada. These networks are not about technology, but are social networks, which provide computer mediated communication, support community memory, and make possible community conversations. He strongly believes that communities can be built and strengthened by online conversations. These communities will see participation by more citizens who are more attuned to their individual responsibilities to the community. These community networks can be used to increase self-governance - not just create technology-using consumers.

Garrett, John R., The World We Want: Emerging Communities, Emerging Information, 1993.

URL: ftp://ftp.cni.org/CNI/documents/illinois.dpc/text/garrett.txt
Presented at the 30th Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing at the University of Illinois.

Geffert, Bryn, "Community Networks in Libraries: A Case Study of the Freenet P.A.T.H." in Public Libraries, Marcy/April 1993, p. 91-99.

Graham, Garth, A Domain Where Thought is Free to Roam: The Social Purpose of Community Networks, 29 March 1995

URL: http://panizzi.shef.ac.uk/community/canada.html
The author lists 10 ideas that community network developers need to keep in mind as they work. These ideas include - community networks are about people not technology; they're public common areas for conversation and discussion not just commerce; just about anyone can get involved in the computer mediated conversations; people want to talk and community networks give them the opportunity to meet and develop relationships; community networks are a representation of local culture and society that is available for the world to see and learn from; community networks need to include many channels for citizens to talk back to businesses and government; community networks are not usually a for-profit business but instead seek ways to pay their own way; with universal access more people learn the skills necessary to work on-line and they build stronger communities neighborhood by neighborhood. The author provides a brief synopsis of each idea first and then goes into some depth about each of them.

Grundner, Tom, Seizing the Infosphere: An Alternative Vision for National Computer Networking

URL: ftp://ftp.cni.org/CNI/documents/illinois.dpc/text/grundner.txt
This was the keynote speech given at the 30th Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing at the University of Illinois. The author was the president of the National Public Telecomputing Network in Cleveland, Ohio. In this article he presents a quick overview of community networking, with some emphasis on free-nets. He then discusses the benefits of community networks, how to fund them, and suggests possible directions for future development of these networks.

Guthrie, K. Kendall and William Dutton, "The Politics of Citizen Access Technology: The Development of Public Information Utilities in Four Cities" in Policy Studies Journal, v20 #4, 1992, p. 574-597.

Kanfer, Alaina and Christopher Kolar, What are Communities Doing On-Line?, paper presented at SuperComputing 1995 on 12/7/95.

URL: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/alaina/com_online/mainframe.html.
The authors looked at 567 community sites in late 1995 to determine content, intended audience, who is providing content, and the html design techniques used. Content was provided by a wide variety of people and organizations, including hte chamber of commerce, schools and universities, freenets and public libraries. They identified several audiences including current residents and businesses, potential residents and businesses, and tourists. Tourists were the most commonly targeted audience. These are often funded by state and local tourism funds. Few of the sites targeted new businesses. 80% of the sites provided information on current businesses and 50% included a community calendar of events.

Lillie, Jonathan, Participation Methodologies for Network Access

URL: http://www.unc.edu/~jlillie/310.html

Love, James P., Current Issues and Initiatives in the Electronic Dissemination of Government Information

URL: ftp://ftp.cni.org/CNI/documents/illinois.dpc/text/love.txt
Presented at the 30th Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing at the University of Illinois. The author, director of the Taxpayer Assets Project, is concerned primarily with national level government information. However, the questions that he raises, about information ownership, privacy, and funding public access all apply to local information. He mentions several benefits to having a central point of access to government information, such as users being able to find the information they need easier and faster because the interfaces to the data will be standardized, and any billing or subscriptions can be handled in a single central place which makes it easier for accounting offices to handle the paperwork.

Lunin, Lois, Special Section Guest Editor, "Outwardly Bound: Pioneers in Civic Networking" in Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, December/January 1994

Macatawa Area Free-Net, Inc., Community Computing and the National Public Telecomputing Network

URL: http://freenet.cs.hope.edu/whatis.html
Last Updated 6/30/95. The authors describe many features of freenets. They include e-mail, information on a wide variety of community services such as health care, education and recreation, information on local government. They are menu driven to be easier to use and are available 24 hours a day so that people can use them when they need information. They are managed by the community itself. Volunteers supply content and technical expertise. Many parts of the community can benefit from using the freenet. Citizens get low-cost access to a wide variety of information. Schools get the ability to teach about computer networks without having to buy expensive hookups from internet service providers. Government officials gains new means of communicating with each other and with citizens. Small and medium sized businesses gain inexpensive e-mail access and another place to advertise services and goods. Community organizations get another way to advertise their services.

Machrone, Bill, "The End of Common Experience" in PC Magazine, 22 October 1996

This short article describes how people in a community may no longer have a pool of common experience upon which to draw in interaction with others. He cautions against creating "walled cities" of interest which cut people off even more from these common experiences.

Maciuszko, Kathleen, "A Quiet Revolution: Community Online Systems" in Online, November 1990, p. 24-32.

Maslyn, Bob, What is Alex? from the Alexandria Electronic Community Town Crier News

URL: http://www.alex.org/news/faq.html#what_is

Maslyn, Bob, The Alex Idea at Two Years: A Work in Progress

URL: http://www.alex.org/news/2-years.html

Mattison, David, "Librarians and the Free-Net Movement" in Internet Librarian, May 1994, p. 46-52.

The article presents a brief description of what a freenet is and the role that librarians play in these community networks.

May, Graham, The Social Implications of Information Technology, published in Inventing the Future, Partnerships for Tomorrow, January 1996.

URL: http://panizzi.shef.ac.uk/community/socimp.html
This paper looks at some predictions of the effects of information technology on society. The optimistic ideas include easier participation in government; the pessimists see government manipulation of citizens. In economics, the optimist sees a cashless society and shared affluence while the pessimist sees increased unemployment and larger division between the rich and poor.

McComb, Bruce, The Changing Role of Community Computer Networks

URL: http://www.laplaza.org/cn/local/mccomb.html
This article describes the efforts of the RECA Foundation in Washington Stateto change their Tri-Cities freenet into a web site called the Columbia Basin Public Information Network to promote regional collaboration to further economic development. It is a rural area so part of the project deals with increasing rural access to the internet. They are also working to make the system universally accessible with public terminals and special adaptive hardware for users with special needs. The paper describes several goals of the new projects and how they expect to fill those goals.

Miller, Steven, An Organizational Strategy for Electronic Democracy

URL: http://www.ctcnet.org/stevemil.html
The author points out the importance of working with grassroots organizations when building community networks. Existing systems have proven that expensive technology is not necessary for most uses. Ordinary people have been able to use and enjoy the existing systems with appropriate training and support, when the content and services meet their needs and interests. The author believes that this community involvement is necessary if the national information infrastructure is to be used to strengthen democracy.

Molz, R. Kathleen, "Civic Networking in the United States: A Report by Columbia University Students" in Internet Research, v4 #4, Winter 1994, p. 52-62.

O'Brien, Fiona and David Miller, Community Networks

URL: http://panizzi.shef.ac.uk/community/compap.html
This site starts with a review of how the concept of community networks is defined and what the main features are. It also lists major goals of community networks and includes examples of how these goals are met in several community networks. It ends up with some problems facing community networks in the future. This site provides a nice overview of the current research.

Odasz, Frank, Community Networking and Implementation Planning Guide

URL: http://www.laplaza.org/cn/local/odasz.html
This article reports on the development of the Big Sky Telegraph system in Montana. This system has several goals - inform citizens about their options for self-directed learning and employment in a knowledge-based economy, provide on-going training of community mentors, create a clearinghouse of resources relevant to community needs, and connect the community with geographically dispersed communities of interest thru listservs and USENET news groups. The article contains a checklist of features for the interface, training, cooperative programs with local education organizations, file storage systems, entrepreneurial training.

Odasz, Frank, "Community Networking: Leveraging the Public Good Electronically! Or Networking in the Public Interest

This article presents roles that citizens can contribute to their community network: infoscout, telementor, reference cybrarian, town crier, and discussion leaders. The author presents other things citizens can do to be more involved such as supporting the people trying to build the community network and putting people before technology.

Pettigrew, Karen and Margaret Wilkinson, "Control of Community Information: An Analysis of Roles" in Library Quarterly, v55 #4, p. 373-407.

This article compares a traditional Information and Referral service agency called Information London in London, Ontario, Canada and the National Capital Freenet, also in Canada. The authors were interested in "control of informaiton" and focused on control through organization ownership and governance, sources of funding, information flow, access, ownership of information, quality control. They make this comparison even though they admit that the community network is very different from the I&R agency in that the CN does not create information but is a vehicle for groups in the community to publish and control their own information. The article seems rather forced because that difference is so great. They point out in a paragraph very near the end of the article what CN developers will probably be saying from the very beginning - that the I&R could use the CN as another channel for delivering their products and services. They do raise the issue of quality control though, which is a problem for community networks where no one is in charge of making sure information is updated or accurate. Even though the information is a product of some group in the community, its inaccuracy does reflect on the community network as a whole as an information provider.

Robertson, Mary, "Exploring the Relationship Between the Use of Information Technologies and Voluntary Participation in a Rural Area of Northern Ontario" in Journal of the Community Development Society, v27 #1, 1996, p. 17-34.

The article looks at the effect of information technology use on participation in voluntary organizations in rural communities. The author wants to see if the use of this technology increases a person's external orientation and if bringing in ideas from outside the community make for stronger leaders in those organizations. The results are not very conclusive but her description of the development of community in rural areas in Canada and her literature review are useful.

Rogers, Every, Lori Collins-Jarvis and Joseph Schmitz, "The PEN Project in Santa Monica: Interactive Communication, Equality, and Political Action" in Journal of the Amewrican Society for Information Science, v45 #6, p. 401-410, 1994.

The authors look at PEN as a tool to reach previously underserved populations in the Santa Monica population asserting that these groups are empowered by access to new technology and by being able to integrate with social networks and activist groups. There is a good history of the development of PEN and some of the early evaluation efforts. The authors focus on 2 groups in society - the homeless and women. The article is descriptive and lacking in some hard numbers. For example on p. 407 "PEN allowed some female users to develop supportive social networks...:" (italics added) and on p. 404, "some (of the homeless) became very heavy users - including several homeless persons"

Ryan, Susan, "Community Computer Systems as Local Media: A Case Study of the Community Memory Project", masters thesis, 1989, 108 pages including bibliography and appendices

There is not much in the thesis about local media but it is a good case study of the Community Memory Project, which is important as documents from that time are difficult to find these days. The author interviewed system developers, analyzed documents produced by the project, categorized messages, observed the terminals to see users and non-users. The author observed that the public terminals did not attract the amount of use that was expected, overall and by the targeted underserved groups. She points out that the interface was not sufficiently tested on people with little computer experience and it might not have been as user-friendly as the developers assumed it was, based on her observations of people learning to use the system without any human help.

Schalken, Kees and Pieter Tops, The Digital City, A study into the backgrounds and opinions of its residents, presented at the Canadian Community Networks Conference, August 15-17, 1994

URL: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/freenet/conferences/com-net94/conference_papers/dcity.txt
This study of the Digital City starts with a description of its layout and history. It was an experiment that was meant to last only 10 weeks but was very successful and has continued. One part of the experiment was to see what effect the network might have on democratic institutions. The majority of the survey dealt with the demographics of the users. The users are overwhelmingly male, most are 30 years old or younger, more than half lived outside of Amsterdam but in the Netherlands. Most of the users are students whose main interest is computer technology. A variety of political information is available on-line. More than 75% of the respondents were interested in political issues. Politicians and bureaucrats were given access to the system but rarely make use of it.

Schuler, Douglas, Community Networks: Building a New Participatory Medium, 1994.

URL: http://www.cpn.org/sections/topics/networking/civic_perspectives/comm_networks.html
This is the on-line version of an article from the January 1994 issue of Communications of the ACM. He describes several community networks projects - Community Memory in Berkeley, CA, the Free-nets, the Big Sky Telegraphy network in Montana, Santa Monica's Public Electronic Network (PEN) and their Electronic Cafe. Network developers need to encourage participation of many groups in the community to help build cohesion within that community. Participation requires easy-to-use, easy-to-afford, easy-to-find terminals in public spaces as well as home computer dial-in access. He then describes information that a community network could include that would enrich the community - a bulletin board announcing local skills/services, information about local training/education opportunities, a strong democracy with opportunities to be involved in local political decision making. The author presents several problems and decisions that face start up community networks such as funding, deciding policies on use and access, and fees.

Schuler, Douglas, Creating Public Space in Cyberspace The Rise of the New Community Networks, 1995.

URL: http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/iwdec.html
From Internet World, December, 1995. The author presents some history about Free-Nets and community networks. He also talks about services that a community network might offer and how these networks could be funded. This seems to be related to the workshop whose notes and outline are in the next entry.

Schuler, Douglas, Developing and Sustaining Community Networks, 1996.

URL: http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/workshop.html
These are notes and outline from a workshop that Doug Schuler presented in Seattle in July, 1996. The topics of the workshop include what services does a community network need to offer to attract users, what kinds of technology can be used in a community network, and what kind of organizational structure will help keep the project going. He also includes resources for more information - books and articles, organizations, and some example community networks.

Schuler, Douglas, How To Kill Community Networks - Hint: We May have Already Started, 1996.

URL: http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/kill-commnets.html
This article is from the January 1996 issue of The Network Observer, an on-line newletter published by Phil Agre. The author defines a community network as a computer system that supports a local geographic community with a wide variety of information and that is designed, used, administered, and owned by the community, not by a for-profit company or a government office. He identifies three beliefs about community networks, beliefs that he sees in many discussions about these networks, that he thinks will be the cause of their failure. First, community networks are utilities like electricity and water, Second, lack of money is the largest obstacle to their success. Third, community networks are basically technology projects which means that computer professionals should be in charge of the project instead of people more representative of the community. To the first belief, he says that information should not be metered out by a higher power and that the information should not be taken for granted as we do electricity. Information is power - but those with power already have an easier time deailing with information. Other groups in the community need to get involved in processing data in to information to share with the community. As for the funding problem, he believes that it is more important to get community support and backing than to look for outside funding. The focus of a community network needs to be on community outreach with an attitude more like a public library than of a commerical service provider. He recommends that instead of focusing on the technology aspect of the project, that developers work with the members of what he calls the "PEG community" - people in public access, education, and government - who have dealt with government and social institutions already.

Shade, Leslie R., Gender Issues in Computer Networking, 1993.

URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/sorokin/women/lrs.html
This is a paper given at the Community Networking: the International Free-Net Conference at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada on August 17-19, 1993. While this article deals with the internet as a whole, it makes several references to how community networks can help increase access to computers for women and other under-represented groups. Community networks can place terminals in women's and senior centers, can sponsor children's discussion groups. Training needs to be provded, not just in how to use the hardware and software (everyone needs that) but in how to be aggressive in looking for information. Community network developers need to be aware of these under-represented groups and work to make sure they are included at all stages of the development of the network.

deSmet, Egbert, "Evaluaton of a Computerized Community Information System through Transaction Analysis and User Survey" in Libri, v45, p. 36-44, 1995.

The author evaluates the use of a new computerized community information system based in a public library in Belgium. The system kept a record of, among other things, all the search terms used, the use of the help feature and the length of time the user stayed online. After each search the user was asked three questions to see if the search was successful, what they thought of the quality of the database, and how many times they had used the system. They reported that users had difficulty distinguishing between different dimensions of the evaluation that the three questions were trying to determine; however, I believe that it is their questions that are at fault. A random sample of library users was surveyed as well to see how many of them used the system and to determine certain demographic characteristics of users/non-users. The author concluded that the system was easy enough to use by non-computer experienced library users, but I do not see evidence to support that it in the paper. 50% of the respondents indicated that they did not find what they were looking for. No results were reported with characteristics of these non-successful searches.

Smith, Greg, Virtual Community in Real Reality...,

URL :http://panizzi.shef.ac.uk/community/virtreal.html
This paper was presented to the Communities Online conference in October 1995, and published in Inventing the Future, Partnerships for Tomorrow, January 1996 and very clearly outlines some arguments against stressing virtual over real life communities.

Smith, Greg, Community-arianism: Community and Communitarianism; Concepts and contexts

URL: http://www.communities.org.uk/greg/gsum.html
Definitions of community, communitarianism, and how virtual communities can be built along those definitions.

Surman, Mark, Wired Words: Utopia, Revolution and the History of Electronic Highways

URL: http://www.web.apc.org/~msurman/wiredwords.html
The author points out that technology will not do away with economic class or level the political playing field. Without information on the issues and the possibilities, the people with little experience with technology can not participate in the debate on what form community networks should take or in what kinds of cyberspace should be created. During the last 100 years, many different technological innovations have been introduced as revolutionary, as capable of causing great changes in society - much as computers and networks have recently. He compares the introduction of cable television in the 1970's with that of the information highway in the 1990's. The paper is a good warning for many community network developers not to get swept up in the hype of the system, but to realize that there are many changes in the social and political systems that must happen first - before any of these technological revolutions can take hold.

Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files

URL: http://epn.org/prospect/25/25-cnt.html
This site, part of the Idea Central sponsored by the Electronic Policy Network, contains 3 articles on the decline of political participation in young people - by Theda Skocpol, Richard Valelly, and Michael Schudson, with response by Harvard professor Robert Putnam, that appeared in The American Prospect, #25 (March-April 1996). One interesting point is that we don't have good measures of civic participation. Schudson questions whether we get the whole picture by focusing on voting, people's trust in government (as reported to surveyors), and how much time people devote to associational groups such as political parties. He suggests that we need to look at time spent in organizations such as motorcycle groups and churches whose members are becoming more politically active. Paying dues to national organizations and wearing issue related buttons - these could all be considered political participation. Valelly points out that groups that traditionally mobilized voters, unions and strong local party organizations, have lost much power over their members - this has produced some reduction in voter turnout. He believes that instead of citizens "tuning out" politics, politics has left them out by reducing any individual contact between citizens and members of the government or political organizations. Skocpol points out that families may be less likely to join traditional social organizations, deciding instead to participate in more child/family centered activities, often with other families. These smaller more informal groups may very well be a place of political discussion.

Weston, Jay, Old Freedom and New Technologies: The Evolution of Community Networks, 1994.

URL: http://nptn.org/cyber.serv/tdp/jweston
This is the written version of a talk presented at the Free Speech and Privacy in the Information Age Symposium, University of Waterloo, Canada, November 26, 1994.

The article first presents a history of network development and then describes where community networks fit in that history. Community networks can not be run FOR the community by some outside institution because no outside institution would have as its primary goal the construction a space to develop public opinion. The same thing is true for the people on the network's board - they must not try to limit communication. True community networks can help develop a more participative form of self-representative democracy. "Community networks must be up to letting everyone speak, as painful as this will be for some, some of the time."

Karen Wichers, "Governments and FreeNets: Speculation on Communications Technology and Democracy in the 21st Century"

Wilcox, David, Community Networks, first appeared in the British Telecommunications Engineering Journal, January 1996

URL: http://panizzi.shef.ac.uk/community/cns.html
This is an introduction to the idea of community networks and looks at models of these networks in the United States to see if any one model would be best for the UK. He points out some problems that community network developers may run into such as lower rate of computer use including by key community partners such as the library and government officials, the difficulty in getting content from volunteer editors, and getting volunteers to cooperate on the planning necessary before starting the network.

This page last updated 5 September 1997 by Kim Gregson