Community networking: development, potentials and implications for public libraries

Examines the nature of community networks and how they developed, in order to provide public librarians and decision makers with a view of emerging tr ends and of points of contact and comparison within the area of community i nformation services. The research took the form of an extensive literature review, focusing on the period between 1992 and 1997, backed up by a number of community network Web sites randomly selected from the Communities Onli ne Forum. At a later stage, a number of librarians were interviewed concern ing their perception of the use of networks in public libraries' community information services. These interviews supported the literature survey in a number of ways and unearthed some relevant literatue in obscure sources th at might otherwise have been overlooked. Some evidence from the interviews caused a reappraisal of the literature. The survey covered: the concept of community networks; development of community networks in the UK and USA; UK community networks using non Internet technologies; UK community networks on the World Wide Web and on intranets; the role of community networks in c ommunication and education; and the recurrent suggestion that community net works might foster people's social participation through electronic mail, d iscussion forums, online voting systems and through greater access to legis lation and other government information. Concludes that the emerging networ k services bring together previously distinct participants and services and may lead to a new division of labour in libraries in such activities as do cument delivery. As public libraries build the 'people's network' it will b e important to learn from and build on community networking experiences.