NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY

Date:      December 5, 1993
Compiler:  Sam Sternberg  samsam@vm1.yorku.ca

This weekly report attempts to follow the changing nature of
community based and oriented activities on the internet.
Readers will get a summary of much of the week's activity on
subjects like Free-Nets and other community nets; access
technology, and legislation effecting public access to
information and network services. Issues like electronic
democracy, censorship and business activity on the net, will be
touched upon when they impact community related issues.

You will also learn about new community nets, and new gophers,
listservs and e-journals which cover this material.

No group and certainly no individual can really monitor even a
fraction of the action on any aspect of the Internet. So your
contributions are welcome.

Please forward announcements to me if "you" are the originating
source.

Please do not forward material from other lists etc. - UNLESS
these sources do not normally focus on issues effecting community
computing and access issues.

To start this news report, I am including a list of major
resources on these topics. This list is not comprehensive. It is
a good guide to historical repositories of information, ongoing
debate and discussion, and useful tools for those attempting to
open or run a community computing facility.

To simplify the job of finding these resources I will point you
to a collection of resources rather than a source whenever that's
possible. I am grateful for the previous work in gathering a
listserv resource list by Art "Rambo" McGee. I have made liberal
use of his list.



DISCUSSION AND ONGOING ASSISTANCE RESOURCES
===========================================
each entry has the following information

LIST NAME     | SUBSCRIPTION Provider's net location
              | DESCRIPTION

To subscribe, send a one line message that says:
SUBSCRIBE   LIST_NAME     YOUR_FIRST_NAME YOUR_LAST_NAME
to the appropriate subscription provider's net location.

                       ----------------


ALA-WO      | listserv@uicvm.uic.edu
            | regular reports on legislation  - information
               access - other matters effecting library networks

COMMUNET    | listserv@uvmvm.uvm.edu
            | Community and Civic Networks - THE PRIMARY LIST

COMMUNITY-ACCESS | community-access-request@parc.xerox.com
                  | Community Access Issues

CET-MG      | almanac@esusda.gov
            | Communities in Economic Transition - for rural
               and small town groups

COSNDISC    | listserv@bitnic.educom.edu
            | Consortium for School Networking

CPSR        | listserv@gwuvm.gwu.edu
            | Computer Professions for Social Responsibility -
               censorship and network related social issues

CYPHERWONKS | listserv@lists.cunet.fi
            | Electronic democracy - privacy - and new software
               development proposals for public debates etc.

FREENET-ADMIN | listserv@nptn.org
              | Free-Net Administrators - current issues facing
                 organizers - funding - managing - law - etc.

FREENET-TECH  | listprocessor@cunews.carleton.ca
              | Technical Net Operations - advice and
                 assistance - excellent source of technical info

PACS-L      | listserv@uhupvm1.uh.edu
            | Library & Public Access Computer Systems - the most
               intellectual of the lists - excellent issue
               analysis


Some of these lists are archived; and the archives are accessible
through the gopher at Rice University in Houston.
     riceinfo.rice.edu



TOOLS FOR DEVELOPING COMMUNITY FACILITIES
=========================================
each entry has the following information

TYPE OF RESOURCE  | LOCATION OF RESOURCE
                  | DESCRIPTION


NETWORK DEVELOPMENT | gopher    lan.vita.org
3rd WORLD             path      ->developnet news
                                 -> technology transfer ->
                    | 3rd world community networks - tools

NETWORK DEVELOPMENT | gopher    riceinfo.rice.edu
ON A BUDGET           path      ->psgnet/rainnet ...
                                 ->tools for low cost networks ->
                    | software and advice for net builders

NETWORK DEVELOPMENT | gopher    riceinfo.rice.edu
AND FUNDING           path      ->grants ->
                    | fundraising resources

ALSO                | gopher     cypher.esusda.gov
                      path       ->resources for non profits
                                  ->resource development ->
                    | location of foundation center libraries
                      and book listing funding info sources.

NETWORK DEVELOPMENT | gopher    riceinfo.rice.edu
AND CULTURE           path      -> computer networks ....->
                    | lots of goodies including
                       Center for Civic Networking
                       civic nets, community nets
                       freenets, NPTN, etc.

ALSO                  path      -> computing
                                 -> social issues ->
                    | various journals on social impacts of
                         computing


CURRENT INFORMATION SOURCES
==========================================
each entry has the following information

TYPE OF RESOURCE  | LOCATION OF RESOURCE
                  | DESCRIPTION

DAILY NEWS  | gopher   cns.cscns.com
              path   ->main
                      ->usnews ->
            | current business and telecommunication news +

ISSUE ANALYSIS | gopher  wired.com
               | articles about technology and society

OPERATING FREENET SYSTEMS | gopher   info.senecac.on.ca
                            path   ->interesting places
                                    ->city freenets

                          | best access list for community nets
.