NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY : January 31, 1994 Networks and Community is devoted to encouraging LOCAL resource creation & GLOBAL resource sharing. compiler : Sam Sternberg The 5th report of 1994 is the 11th weekly survey. Coverage includes CORRECTIONS - INTERNET POLITICS - DISCUSSIONS - NEW SERVICES CANADIAN NET EVENTS CORRECTIONS: ------------ For more information on SEATTLE PEOPLES' INTERNET Cooperative, people can write to Adam Feuer; member and board president, Seattle Peoples' Internet Cooperative adamfast@u.washington.edu voice: (206) 996-0794 fax: (206) 782-5776 Jonathan Magid wrote to remind me that the list of ideas about using Free-nets for improving local communities actually came from sunsite. "I would not mind an acknowledgement of SunSITE's role in bringing this material on-line." NEW BRUNSWICK WILL BE THE FIRST PROVINCE in Canada to appoint a cabinet minister responsible for the development of the electronic information highway, Premier Frank McKenna announced. Georges Corriveau (MLA-Madawaska-les-Lacs) was named the New Brunswick minister of state for the electronic information highway. New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna can be reached through e-mail, at the following Internet address: INTERNET POLITICS ----------------- The Clinton administration is proposing a new section for the TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT: "VII. Regulation of Two-Way, Broadband Transmission Services (Title VII) The Administration proposes adding a new Title VII to the Communications Act to apply, on an elective basis, to providers of two-way, broadband, digital transmission services, offered on a switched basis to end users. The Administration would emphasize these services because, well into the 21st century, they will connect and empower the American public by providing them with a variety of voice, data, video services, and other information that will enhance our nation's economic competitiveness and the quality of life of our citizens. A new Title VII would provide a unified, symmetric treatment of providers of two-way broadband services, in contrast to the present disparate treatment of common carriers and cable operators under Titles II and VI of the Act. It also would provide important incentives to promote private sector development of this part of the NII and spur availability of advanced services on a widespread basis. The Administration recognizes that communications services are developing in a rapidly changing technical and marketplace environment. A new Title VII would create a regulatory regime that should stand the test of time by providing the FCC with the flexibility to adapt its regulatory approach in light of changes in market and technological conditions." The new section would streamline regulations for companies that chose to be regulated under it. At the same time it would reguire them to meet specific guarantees for public access, open system features, privacy, and even the provision of public "data" phone booths. ----------------- Chris Casey of the office of Sen. Edward Kennedy says "Some progress is being made here on the Hill. The Senate now has an anonymous ftp server running. It's sparsly populated, only Kennedy and Stevens have posted anything so far, but I imagine the rest will find their way shortly. At least it's a start. The fact that the Senate has an anonymous ftp server is not a secret, but I don't think it's widely known either." You can access the server by FTPing to ftp.senate.gov, logging in as "anonymous" (without the quotes) and giving your email address as password. This service is provided by the Office of the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. It contains general information files about the United States Senate in the directory "general". Directories are also provided for specific Senators' offices, in alphabetical order by two-letter state abbreviations, and for Senate committees and other Senate offices. The "releases" subdirectories contain press releases and related materials, and "general" subdirectories contain information of long-term interest such as office contacts. -------------------- The current issue of Alawon - the library oriented congressional watch newsletter points out that illegal regulations have been promulgated in what are essentially power struggles over potential control of government information. REVENUE GENERATION is at the heart of this perversion of U.S. law. " NTIS REGULATIONS PLACE RESTRICTIONS ON GOVERNMENT INFORMATION The National Technical Information Service published final regulations in the January 3 _Federal Register_, pp. 6-12, that place restrictions on the use of NTIS databases in depository libraries. The final rule on the transfer of scientific, technical and engineering information to NTIS contains a new set of provisions under which NTIS promises to distribute two NTIS databases to depository libraries "on the condition that they agree to ensure that online access to the NTIS listing...is restricted to the Library and its staff and that the full text provided online...are available only to the community served by that Library." These provisions, for which no opportunity for public comment was provided, appear to contradict the law governing the Depository Library Program and the Office of Management and Budget's Circular A-130 by restricting the use and reu of government information. While NTIS may improve public access to some scientific and technical information, by law agencies are required to make virtually every kind of published government information available to GPO's Depository Library Program (44 U.S.C. 1902 and 1903). Publications are to be made available by depositories "for the free use of the general public" (44 U.S.C. 1911). There is no provision in the American Technology Preeminence Act (which NTIS cites as the statutory authority for their regulations) which establishes a depository distribution requirement for NTIS, permits NTIS to assume depository distribution responsibilities assigned to GPO and federal agencies, or exempts agencies from compliance with the requirements of chapter 19 of Title 44 with respect to scientific, technical and engineering information. In the comments section preceding the final rule (p. 9), NTIS was frank about the reason for the restrictions it imposed on depository use of its databases: "The new regulations will also obligate DL's to protect the information provided to them (Section 1180.11(d)(6)). This is important because the improper disclosure of this valuable information could seriously erode NTIS's ability to operate on a self-sustaining basis. For example, improper dissemination of the list of products could significantly reduce the rental value of NTIS's bibliographic database as an income- producing asset." No such restrictions on government information are permitted in the law governing depository libraries. Additionally, OMB Circular A-130 directs agencies to "avoid establishing restrictions or regulations, including the charging of fees or royalties, on the reuse, resale, or redissemination of Federal information dissemination products by the public" (58FR36072). When ALA past president Marilyn Miller commented on NTIS' proposed regulations announced in the May 11, 1993 _Federal Register_, pp. 27681-4, she made several comments on the proposed rules. Although ALA supported NTIS in its efforts to provide government information to libraries and the general public, Miller expressed concern about agency noncompliance with the GPO depository requirements. She was also concerned about the exceedingly broad definition of "scientific, technical and engineering ." The definition in the final regulations remains extremely road and includes: "Information that bears on business and industry generally, such as economic information, market information and related information, if the agency determines such information would be of value to consumers of the information" described in another paragraph as "basic and applied research that results from the efforts of scientists and engineers in any medium...." Several comments expressed by Miller and other library associations were acted on and included in the January 3 final rule. The regulations state regulations do not exempt an agency from following compliance requirements to distribute publications through the Depository Library Program. Miller also called for "co-operation not competition," procedures for facilitating cooperation between NTIS, federal agencies, and depositories. The regulations are effective February 1. For further information, contact Donald Corrigan at 703-487-4636. ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is an irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5675. Internet: alawash@alawash.org; Phone: 202-547-4440; Fax: 202-547-7363. Editor: Carol C. Henderson (cch@alawash.org). To subscribe, send the message "subscribe ala-wo [your name]" to listserv@uicvm (Bitnet) or listserv@uicvm.uic.edu (internet). Back issues and other documents are available from the list server. To find out what's vailable, send the message "send ala-wo filelist" to the listserv. The ALA-WO filelist contains the list of files with the exact filename and filetype. To get a particular file, issue the command "send filename filetype" to the listserv. Do not include the quotes in your commands. DISCUSSION ---------- In general the amount of discussion on all internet listservs covering community networks was low. A major flame war broke out over a proposal to use 1 billion dollars in pentagon funds to create an institute to beef up the content of the Internet in areas of interest to the U.S. Intelligence community. The proposed "foundation"; would act as a front "cutout" for the "community". Funding resource development without revealing which elements of the intelligence community were interested. Freenet-admin listserv: An alternative view on the structure of Civic nets was posted. " One of the things that will make Free-Nets more economical to run and maintain is when we can turn off our last dial-up telephone/modem line and have a single network connection without cutting any of our patrons off from our service. It won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen. That will relieve us of this function and allow us to devote full time to the purpose of the Free-Net." Andrew L. Hollander, continues; " my view is that Free-Nets are information service providers to the local and networked community. Their niche is to provide, electronically, that information that is unique to the locallity that the Free-Net covers. That has been, and will always be, first and foremost, the reason for being. In effect, we will be one shelf of books in the Internet library. Internet access, e-mail, and network news are extremely nice features of Free-Nets, for the moment. However, with increased local access directly to these other services, they will become redundant, out moded and not cost effective for a Free-Net to provide. I see this as a natural evolution of Free-Nets, and something to look forward to while we struggle with how to provide the ancillary functions that we should and/or need to carry until other easier entry points to the Information Superhighway are available to individuals in our communities. It may take 5, 10, or 15 years, but we should have our eyes open to the future of our service." Also discussed on the admin list was a call for a document archive to be created which would hold developmental information for those wanting to create new civic nets. Freenet-tech listserv: Discussion of the use of WEB and hypertext continued and was extended into the area of using offline mail readers. Also discussed were techniques for handling multiple languages. Communet listserv: Most of the posting had a random character. Of some general interest were further information on the CoNet movement in Minnesota. This is an attempt to base civic nets on the use of "parti" conferencing software. They also seek close relationships with public broadcasters. There were several posts with heartfelt calls for a defence against the administration's decision to embrace the commercial world as the developer of NII. Unfortunately, they did not include any suggestions for concrete actions that could be undertaken. Two recent newspaper articles opposing the administration's goal of Universal Access were summerized and list readers were asked to write and give the views this community to the papers. The opposition was based on the desire not to see another "mandated" service come into existance. The most enjoyable communet post was the following example of how net access can benefit non profit groups. "San Diego Local nonprofit agencies have a unique way of communicating with themselves, they send E-Mail. An Electronic Bulletin Board System located at Catholic Charities provides electronic mail capabilities for local agencies to send electronic mail. The 386 system uses SCO Xenix Operating System and has numerous phone numbers for access from differing areas. Nonprofit agencies in the central and north counties have benefited from its use over the years but the system had not generated as much attention or popularity until June of 1993 when the Internet Mail (UUCP) connection was established. Connection of Electronic Mail from this computer system to other networks, such as Prodigy, CompuServe, HandsNet, Connect, Universities and numerous other computer networks has spurred increasing system use. So much so that an additional 425MB hard drive had to be added to meet increased use." The system includes: Meeting Schedules, Agendas, and Events Bed Availability, Homeless & At Risk Directory Service Provider's ( Discontinued / New / Changed / Temporary ) Funding, Grants, Endowments, Resources, Donation (Need/Avail.) Job Availability Information Volunteer Needs and Ideas Computer & EBB System Related Information Individual User Directories Health Care, Prenatal Care, & Medical Related Seniors, Children, and Disabled Food/Hunger & Poverty Issues F.E.M.A. S.D. Community Back To Work Transportation Fund Also included are services such as bed availability information, inter-agency electronic mail, client referral coordination and file transfer capabilities. The main menu allows the users to send electronic mail or post information in topic sections related to their organizations. The funding arrangements are straight forward. Agencies have supported the Electronic Bulletin Board by way of subscription fees for several years now but the project was initially started with donations and grants. The system does offer incredible capabilities for its users and it is a very valuable step to the Information Superhighway. David Almada of Catholic Charities Says "I am very surprised by the response. I have been receiving E-Mail from nonprofits in Moscow and Argentina asking for information about our system. I had no idea the computers connected that far! It is relatively simple to connect users to the system, all they need is a modem, Catholic Charities provides communications software. For more information mail can be sent to ccsd@spdn.cts.com NEW SERVICES ------------ HYPERTEXT NETWORK MENU STRUCTURES: Peter Scott - the developer of the wonderful HYTELNET SERVICES wrote that "I have been thinking about creating a hypertext utility for listing main menu structures, based upon my HYTELNET utility, which which you may be familiar. It would be useful for handing out to interested people, particularly those without any access to the network. It could also be easily customized for particular groups who might be willing to assist in funding i.e. index sub-menus for specific topics like business or education resources. Also, useful documents could be linked i.e. business plans, FREE-NET dial-in numbers. If you want to see an example of how this may work telnet to access.usask.ca login with: hytelnet and go to the FREE-NET menu under SITES2. IMPROVED SYSTEM FOR LOCATING A SPECIFIC GOPHER: "We are among the few gophers that allow searches for gophers by partial Title or partial Internet address. For instance, if you want to search for all gophers with Pennsylvania in their titles you can enter a search parameter of "Pennsylvania". If, however, you wanted to find all gophers provided by the University of Pennsylvania and you knew their Internet domain contained "upenn" you could enter "upenn" as the search paramter. You can even use both techniques, using one type of search to refine the second search. We have found that using search to access gophers is much faster than a sequential search thru the full country/state list of gophers. And you can quickly find if a particular site provides any other gopher servers." Link=USA/Texas/Texas Tech University, Computer Sciences Type=1 Name=Texas Tech University, Computer Sciences (SpIcE oF LiFe) Path= Host=cs4sun.cs.ttu.edu Port=70 URL: gopher://cs4sun.cs.ttu.edu:70/1 --> 16. Other Gopher and Information Servers --> 2. Search for Gophers by Name or Internet Address ACCESS INSTRUCTIONS FOR PACS NEWS & PACS REVIEW The University of Houston Libraries have established a Gopher archive for these electronic publications. Access directions follow. I. Public-Access Computer Systems News A. Gopher Server Link Name=Public-Access Computer Systems News Type=1 Port=70 Path=1/articles/e-journals/uhlibrary/pacsnews Host=info.lib.uh.edu II. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review A. Gopher Server Link Name=The Public-Access Computer Systems Review Type=1 Port=70 Path=1/articles/e-journals/uhlibrary/pacsreview Host=info.lib.uh.edu B. Gopher Client Access Point your client at info.lib.uh.edu, port 70, and follow this menu path: 3. Looking for Articles 3. Electronic Journals 6. University of Houston Libraries E-Journals 2. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review CANADIAN NET EVENTS: A SECOND WWW BASED FREE-NET IS ANNOUNCED " We hope to have our WWW based Community Network on-line within the next two months. I invite you to look at what we have done. http://www.cs.dal.ca/mcnp/Home.html David Murdoch * djm@duncan.alt.ns.ca * Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada THE OSTRY REPORT ON GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN NETWORK DEVELOPMENT This report - originally commissioned by the Mulroney regime, was being ignored by the Liberal government till Mr. Ostry leaked it to the press. The resulting publicity lead to its "adoption". Just how much of it gets adopted will be seen this tuesday as the first format liberal statement of its policies regard the NII will be laid out at the ITAC convention in Toronto. The importance of this issue to the Prime Minister can be seen in the fact that tonight [monday] he delivered a speech in Toronto to a business group about his jobs program. Tomorrow a third ranking civil servant will be in Toronto to deliver his position to to the assembled audience at ITAC. [ and these folks have paid up to $1,ooo.oo each to attend] The report itself is intelligent, quirky, and slanted to towards educational needs. Which is to expected given its authors profound involvement in the development of educational T.V. Press accounts have missed the thrust of the report and failed to comment on its most appealing but quirky elements. According to Ostry, all previous government efforts at developing a national net policy have been "mired... in indecision". He goes on to say that in his numerous contacts with federal officials he found " a deep-seated suspicion or fear that powerful hostile constituencies outside of OTTAWA .......[ everyone else in canda with any political clout is then listed] .... "stand ready to obstruct or embarrass a federal initiative" .... [ I can't resist commenting that during the Mulroney years I saw the same behaviour. It lead to manipulative policy efforts and extreme secrecy; but I assumed it came from a distain for the public and a desire to hide a massive amount of financial corruption. ed ] On the other hand in visiting these other players he found they all wanted federal leadership. Ostry believes that a real effort has to be made to use the nets to defend Canadian culture. That the Canarie project is not sufficient and that Cabinet level leadership is needed. "Today may be our last chance" he quotes for a prior report. The key issue for him is clearly the need for supporting "serious Canadian programming in a system dominated by the U.S...." ============================================== NETWORKS and COMMUNITY is a public service of FUTURE DATA; a partnership of researchers and research system designers. Our research resources include all commercial and non commercial nets, along with over 200 cd-rom databases, 50,000 magazines and more than 30 million books. For commercial services contact Gwyneth Store - circa@io.org This newsletter is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN and may be used as you see fit. To contribute items or enguire about this newsletter contact Sam Sternberg .