Subject: Re: Markle initiative for universal e-mail
CWHITCOM@bentley.edu
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:37:06 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:37:06 -0400 (EDT) From: CWHITCOM@bentley.edu Subject: Re: Markle initiative for universal e-mail To: ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG Message-Id: <01IVXHGB9L4O8Y67II@bentley.edu>
In response to Mary's concern:
I think Mary's concerns are very valid if we make the assumption that
all personal computing should be done in one's living room. I, too,
believe that this is an unrealistice objective for the near term and
we may well lose the access war and create a permanent information
underclass if we don't find another way.
Fortunately, there is a very healthy movement of community networking
centers growing throughout the country. Typically, these are centers
with several computers who open their door to the public for some
number of hours in the week. More and more schools and libraries
are also offering public access to the Internet.
I run such a center, Virtually Wired, in downtown Boston. We have 20
computers online, we're open 47 hours a week, and we're staffed with
primarily homeless and disabled volunteers. Eveyday the computers are
filled with homeless, elderly, disabled, unemployed - you name it.
In addition to access we can provide lots of human help. We have an
incredible staff of tech volunteers - all homeless.
Most community technology centers start life with a big grant from
somewhere. All intend to become self-sustaining in 2 years. Virtually
Wired has never received a big grant so we have survived very meagerly
on revenue. Our attempts to get funding have found a very skeptical
funding community. Without buy-in from a big well-known entity, it is
difficult to prove credibility. The concept is new and most of the
practitioners are so overwhelmed in making them work, they have no time
to share best practices, much less to study and evaluate. Nevertheless,
we all know that we are doing what it takes to close the information gap
in our little corner of the world.
This long winded post is meant to support the Markle work on email. If
a well-respected organization like Markle can prove to the world that
basic access to the Internet is crucial, community technology centers
get a huge boost in credibility as necessary resources for every
community. It's going to be a long time before we practitioners can
put our efforts into effective advocacy on our behalf.
Coralee Whitcomb
coralee@vw.org
<cwhitcom@bentley.edu>
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