Re: Internet access via Post Offices?

[Dan Robinson <DAN@INFO.HWWILSON.COM>]

> Dear Netters,
>      A colleague of mine forwarded me this from another list.  Has
> anyone else heard about this plan?  Should we start swamping the
> White House with our thoughts on this?  Ms. Davidson makes some
> great points!
>                               Bonnie Fulmer, Librarian
>                               Spackenkill High School Library
>                               112 Spackenkill Road
>                               Poughkeepsie, NY   12603
>                                gbf1@maristb.marist.edu
>
> --------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------
>
> TO: Colleagues interested in access to government information
> FROM: Sue Davidsen, Technology Librarian & Operations Manager, MLink, The
> University of Michigan Library
> DATE:  21 October 1994
>
> As I was watching last night's Headline News, I saw the piece that covered the
> unveiling of the new www.whitehouse.gov web site for U.S. government
> information.
> Point and click, bells and whistles, pictures, icons, audio -- all of the sign
 s
> of a Mosaic client. Then I heard the voice-over say that the administration wa
 s
> planning to put computer kiosks directly connected to this service in every PO
 ST
> OFFICE in the United States.
>
> After some calls to the White House and the Postal Service, I found out that o
 ur
> government is indeed going to put Internet connections in the post offices
> of our
> country while public libraries are at this point completely left out of the
> equation. The post office -- which, arguably, manages information flow in prin
 t
> form, is going to introduce a fairly sophisticated information delivery system
> and get a connection to the Internet while the community library, which has be
 en
> an information provider, navigator and access manager for over a hundred and
> fifty years in our country, is given a URL.
>
>

There is already an update and the library world is not being left
out.  It's just that the Post Office was in first with funding and
Gore's office wanted to include it as part of the Whitehouse's WWW
page.


Here is the pertinent part:

................
From: davidsen@umich.edu (Susanna L. Davidsen)
Subject: Update to Gore bypasses PL's [from original author]
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 13:27:47 +0000

This is a follow-up to a posting I made last Friday regarding the
administration's plans to put government information kiosks in Post
Offices.

Since Friday I have been in contact with the manager of the post
office kiosk project who was able to clarify some issues about the
program. Here is what I found out.

The kiosks are not limited to post offices. The post office, because
it raises its own revenue, was the first entity to use funding for
the project. They will pay for the Internet connections to post
offices through their own budget funds. There is a group working on a
plan of where to put these kiosks and public libraries are included
on the list (as are grocery stores and malls). They are especially
interested in libraries as places where there will be handicapped
access to the kiosk.

..................[deleted]

I don't think we have to flood the Whitehouse with protests.


Dan Robinson
dan@info.hwwilson.com