Good News and Bad News for Public Access Edited from a Presentation by Prof. Gregory Newby (Sponsored by the Lincoln Trail Libraries System at the ILSDO Consulting Workshop, "Connecting with Technology) The Graduate School of Library Sciences The University of Illinois September 14, 1995 I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there's something incredibly exciting happening in communities around the world. Com- munity-based organizations are developing Free-Nets, public access computer systems with all sorts of local information, basic access to the Internet, and a strong outreach mission. The bad news is that it's getting harder and harder for these organizations to get started. Impediments to starting community systems include: - 1. A lack of funding opportunities at the federal and state level - 2. Confusion over the role of a community system relative to various commercial Internet providers - 3. A thrust on commercial and business uses of the Internet, rather than on civic or social uses. Let's start with the good news. There are more than 50 active community computing systems around the world, called Free-Nets, affiliated with the National Public Telecomputing Network. The National Public Telecomputing Network, or NPTN, is something like the Public Broad- casting System is to public TV stations. Aside from the functioning systems, there are another 130 or so organizing committees working on starting systems. The active NPTN affiliated systems are community based. They have strong ties to organizations including libraries, schools, Chamber of Commerce, and the local business community. Use of the systems is free, with an emphasis on outreach to populations that might not otherwise have access to high-tech tools of the Information Age. Funding comes from the community, through the Free-Nets' users, community businesses and other sponsors, and information providers. "Information providers" is what Free-Nets are all about. Community clubs, businesses, government, or other types of groups contribute information to the Free-Net for their community members to access. Some of the benefits of Free-Nets include: --> People from all walks of life are learning to use electronic mail, network news, and all other types of Internet tools --> Organizations in communities are learning what sorts of benefits they can get from putting information about the things they do on a community computing system. They find that there is little or no direct cost involved --- It's a great PR mechanism, and provides a high-tech image. It benefits the community. --> Democracy is starting to happen on these systems. County commissioners, city government, school districts, and others are getting email addresses and starting to use email, network news, and the WorldWide Web to communicate with the citizenry. --> Libraries in these communities are benefitting from getting a head start with using and accessing the new array of information resources on the Internet. The good news should be clear: There is an exiting grassroots movement to bring the "Information Age" to the masses, operating largely independently of bit business and existing media. Now, on to the bad news. To sum up, it's getting very difficult to start community computing systems. The problem is wrapped in three packages: funding, federal policy, and local competition. First, let's talk about funding. It's no secret that computer technology, systems staff, modems, telephone lines, and Internet connectivity are expensive commodi- ties. In the case of Prairienet, a Free-Net I started and run in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, our annual budget for 1995-96 exceeds $150,000, and we get Internet access and other infrastructure from the University of Illinois which would otherwise cost at least another $50,000. We needed about $50,000 to get started, in 1993. Since then we've increased our staff, purchased more equipment, and, among other things, pay $17,000 in telephone charges yearly for our 72 modems. What federal grant programs have you heard about lately that could be used to help get a community computing system started? The answer is pretty close to zero. What was starting in 1993 to look like a great increase in funding opportunities from the various federal sources like the Department of Commerce, the White House, and the USDA has turned into a virtual desert, devoid of general funds to start community computing systems. That doesn't mean that there are no opportunities. Foundations are one source that has paid off recently, with a new system in South Bend, Indiana, receiving $53,000 from MCI. There are also possibilities for pursuing educational grants or grants with non-Free-Net focuses by coming up with a project that makes use of the Free-Net style system to accomplish the grant's goals. For example, getting a grant for improving education, but developing community-wide services as a part of that grant. And don't forget about state sources. The Illinois State Library has been especially generous to some of the systems in Illinois, and other states have compabably beneficient state organizations. The overall picture for getting funding to start a community computing system is far from rosy. Many systems that are getting started don't have too much more than a great idea. It's hard to explain the unique community services of a Free-Net to potential funders who are just starting to understand the World Wide Web. Let's talk about federal policy. Think back with me for a minute to 1992. You might not have been fully aware of the Internet back then, and tools like the World Wide Web and Gopher were just getting started. But there was a lot of hope for the future of the Internet. Al Gore had become Vice-President, and he was a friend to high-technology. Through legislation introduced by Gore, NSF-NET had receiving increased funding, and virtually every aspect of federal government and education was gearing up for a networked future. There was talk of making the Internet more accessible for easing unemployment, granting access to the disabled, and creating freer and more open ways of communicating with government. Do you remember that? In 1993 I sent my first email message to the White House, `president@whitehouse.gov,' and received a very nice form letter auto-reply. In 1993, enter Mosaic. All of a sudden, the Internet was much more interesting. At the same time, the NSF was specifically trying to get out of being the main source for the United States Internet backbone, removing its policy limits on business uses, and encouraging commercial services to take over. If you can imagine a path that forks into two branches, the choice of which path to take a few years ago could be defined simply. On one side was a new form of teledemocracy in which Government encouraged educational and civic uses of the Internet, and helped to foster community-based networking efforts of all types. The second path was towards a "free-market" model in which Government took a hands-off approach to regulating the Internet. This resulted in a competitive free-for-all to develop fee-based Internet services. In this model, businesses would determine the shape of things to come, and it would be the ability to profit, not the value to the public, which would shape services and content. Can you tell which path we are now on? Within the past two years, the two biggest policy decisions I know about that have shaped the future of the Internet sound like they have nothing to do with the Internet. The first is Judge Green's decision to allow AT&T and the other telephone companies to provide content, in addition to providing connectivity services. This opens the door for telephone companies, of which there are 1400 in the U.S., to get into various forms of value-added data services. The second policy decision was the removal of the requirement for cable companies to support community public access channels for local home-grown programming. Twenty companies now own most mass media in this country. These same companies, plus a few others like AT&T and MCI, are also the biggest players in the Internet business. The Internet is already a multi-billion dollar business, on a growth path to becoming the most lucrative sector of the U.S. economy within 10 years. The focus of these companies is on the business uses of the Internet, not social, educational, or civic uses. There can be no doubt about the path we are on. Here in Illinois, Internet circuits include a per-mile fee for routing your circuit to Chicago or another metropolitan area, effectively doubling the cost of connecting a library in, say, Paris Illinois, to the Internet. To say that the picture of national policy for the Internet is bleak for community computing systems is a vast understatement. There is almost nothing going on at a federal level to encourage the types of free and equitable access and community-based developments we talked about earlier. On the contrary, there is much to discourage these efforts. The last piece of bad news I want to mention has to do with local impediments to starting community computing systems. Every community has businesses that are starting to think about how they can benefit from the Internet, and might see new Free-Net efforts as competition. Local Internet service providers are springing up everywhere. Here in Champaign-Urbana, there are 5 or 6 local companies selling dial-in modem service, 56K or T1 connections, ISDN, and commercial Web space, plus local numbers for Prodigy, AOL, CompuServe, and others. No matter how you present yourself as a community computing initiative, you will have trouble setting yourself as anything other than competition for these enterprises. You will also have trouble positioning yourself so that your potential information providers and users can tell the difference without having an existing system to try. Finally, I would like to share with you some of the things we've done with Prairienet to combat or avoid these challenges. First, our Commercial Use Policy: ===>1. NO PRICES. Information about products and services is OK, especially if it has some value to the community, but no prices for products or services may appear in our menus, Web pages, or elsewhere; and ===>2. NO TRANSACTIONS. Prairienet does not permit money transactions on the system, including invoicing, credit cards, etc. business information providers can establish themselves on Prairienet with very little overhead, and when they grow, they can move on to a service that permits prices and permits transactions. Where do they go? To the local Internet service providers! In our area, the ISPs know that we're creating business for them, not taking it away. The other aspect of Prairienet's strategy is to de-emphasize free Internet access as a selling point. The idea is to make community information and basic education about network resources an ISP's main selling point. I would like to invite and encourage you to consider working on developing some form of community computing system. It might be like a Free-Net, with modem access, email, training, and so forth. Or, it might be a community-wide effort to create a community presence on the Internet. Another approach is to work with local commercial efforts to foster civic interest and responsibility. The times have changed, and continue to change. Despite the problems, there is still a role for community computing, and opportunities to make some of our dreams for the future come to pass. I would like to challenge you, and invite you, to help shape that future.