[2813] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: the fate of Internet, further comments
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (peter marshall)
Mon Jun 8 16:38:20 1992
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 92 09:31:03 PDT
From: lorbit!rocque@uu4.psi.com (peter marshall)
To: com-priv@psi.com
As Ralph Sims' recent reply to Roy Tennant's 6/3 post points out, some
public libraries would appear to be part of the problem, and not necessarily
therefore, part of any solution. Their hands are not always "clean," either,
as evidenced by Ralph's citation of a current push to newly impose fees for
services on the part of the Seattle Public Library, which, not incidentally,
happens to be the major public library in the Northwest.
SPL, for example, has ignored the public voice in this affair, is enamored
with information technology while unknowledgable about it, currently uses
their guest Internet account for little other than internal, administrative
purposes, and is not above passing on to what they now call "customers"
both net and Western Library Network-related costs; while at the same time
enamored of some questionable public-private "partnerships," selling the
local CPSR chapter on the Library's slapdash notion of a "community info
net," and meeting in behind-the-scenes, unannounced sessions with people
from area "high-tech" companies in what looks like a shot at mutual back-
scratching.
--
Peter Marshall(rocque@lorbit.uucp)
"Lightfinger" Rayek's Friendly Casino: 206/528-0948, Seattle, Washington.
