NREN for All:
Insurmountable Opportunity
c. 1993 Jean Armour PollyManager of Network Development and User TrainingNYSERNet, Inc.jpolly@nysernet.org
This was originally published in the February 1, 1993 issue of
Library Journal (volume 118, n. 2, pp 38-41).
It may be freely reprinted for educational use, please let me know if you
are redistributing it, I like to know if it's useful and where it's been.
Please do not sell it, and keep this message intact.
When Senator Al Gore was evangelizing support for his visionaryNational Research and Education Network bill, he often pointed tothe many benefits of a high-speed, multi-lane, multi-level datasuperhighway. Some of these included:
— collaborating research teams, physically distant from each other,working on shared projects via high speed computer networks.Some of these "grand challenges" might model global environmentalchange, or new therapeutic drug research, or the design of a newairplane for inexpensive consumer air travel.
— a scientist or engineer might design a product, which could beinstantly communicated to a manufacturing plant, whose roboticmachine could turn the drawing-board product into reality. One exampleof this is the capability to digitally measure a new recruit for anarmy uniform, transmit the information to a clothing manufacturer,and take delivery of a custom-tailored uniform the next day.
— access to digital libraries of information, both textual and graphic.Besides hundreds of online public access catalogs, and full textdocuments, color illustrations of photographic quality, full motionvideos and digital audio will also be available over the network.
In his many articles and speeches touting the bill, Gore often usedan example of a little girl, living in a rural area, at work on a schoolproject. Was she information-poor due to her physical location, farfrom the resources of large cities? No— the National Research andEducation Network would give her the capability to dial into theLibrary of Congress— to collect information on dinosaurs.
Now that the NREN bill has been signed into law (12/91), andcommittees are being formed, and policies are being made, I'm stillthinking about that little girl, and her parents, for that matter. Infact I've got some "Grand Questions" to pose.
1- How will we get access?
The Internet has been called the "Interim NREN", since it's what wehave in place now.
I'm wondering how the family is going to get to the Internet "dial tone",let alone the NREN, especially since they live in a rural area.The information superhighway may be miles from their home, andit may be an expensive long-distance call to the "entrance ramp".
Or, the superhighway may run right through their front yard, butthey can't make use of it because they have no computer, no modem,and no phone line to make the connection. What good is a superhighwayif all you've got is a tricycle?
2- What will they be able to gain access to, and will their privacy be protected?
Beyond the infrastructure issues, I'm concerned about what kind ofthings will be available for them once they do get connected,how the resources will be arranged, and how they will learn to usethese tools to advantage. Beyond that, how authoritative is theinformation in the digital collection, and how do we know for sureit came from a legitimate source? How confidential will theirinformation searches be, and how