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The American Library Association and the Information Use Management and Policy Institute (http://www.ii.fsu.edu) in the College of Information at Florida State University, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is surveying a national sample of public libraries regarding their Internet connectivity and computing access resources.

he data from the enhanced study will help you to identify the impacts of your library's public computer and Internet access on the community that your library serves.

Enter then the broadband-transportation link. Fast, reliable Internet connection makes telecommuting far more feasible –– to transfer files, worksheets and video clips, access company databases, create videoconferences and more. But "telework" can't function well when employees don't have broadband access. Simple equation: Universal broadband equals increased telecommuting, which in turn means less roadway demand, fewer greenhouse gas emissions and less pollution. Even if a worker telecommutes a day or two a week, it can make a real difference.

In January 2007, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) announced its second multi–year technology grant program for America’s public libraries. The purpose of Phase II, Keeping communities connected: The next step is to help public libraries sustain the public access computing infrastructure laid down during Phase I. Now, as then, the goal of the program is to bridge the digital divide. But it is a digital divide as defined by Bill Gates and not the public library community. Situating Gates’ philanthropy within a critical policy frame, this paper considers two alternatives to Gates’ problem definition of the digital divide, and how knowledge of these might benefit those communities served by public access computing (PAC) services as found in public libraries. The two specific alternatives considered come from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and Community Informatics (CI). Significantly, both social movements promote the potential of free and open software as an important part of any solution. Finally, the public library literature is reviewed for patterns in the community’s use of FOSS, and the argument is made for its use in the delivery of PAC services.

 Despite its explosive growth over the last decade, the Web remains essentially a tool to allow humans to access information. The next generation of the Web, dubbed the ‘Semantic Web’, will extend the Web’s capability through the increased availability machine-processable information. These machine-processable descriptions of Web information resources are called meta-data and are associated with ontologies, or conceptualisations of the domain of application. Meta-data and associated ontologies then allows more intelligent software systems to be written, automating the analysis and exploitation of Web-based information.This paper describes how knowledge management can be improved through the adoption of Semantic Web technology. To realise this, a number of different technologies need to be brought together. Their fusion provides the infrastructure which makes semantic knowledge management possible. Specifically, the paper discusses the use of knowledge discovery and human language technology to (semi-)automatically derive the required ontologies and meta-data, along with a methodology to support this process. We describe techniques for management and controlled evolution of ontologies and a set of semantic knowledge access tools for enhanced information access. Finally, a set of application scenarios for the technology are sketched.

Technology is transforming the way in which researchers gain access to archives, not only in the choices archivists make about their uses of technology but in the portable technologies researchers bring with them to the archives. This essay reviews the implications of electronic mail, instant messaging and chat, digital reference services, Web sites, scanners, digital cameras, folksonomies, and various adaptive technologies in facilitating archival access. The new machines represent greater, even unprecedented, opportunities for archivists to support one of the main elements of their professional mission, namely, getting archival records used.

This article focuses on the importance of public library Internet access in times of emergencies and for a range of electronic government (e–government) services at the individual and community–wide levels.

This Task Group is for collaborative work on Resource Description and Access (RDA)

Charter: To define components of the draft standard "RDA - Resource Description and Access" as an RDF vocabulary for use in developing a Dublin Core application profile.

Susan S. Lukesh discusses the long-term desire for scholars to have all the information on one subject — in this case prehistoric pottery — gathered together for easy access in relation to possibilities that are available today. The subject is far broader than pottery and directly relates to the critical issue of modern scholarship and access to raw data underlying all analyses presented in paper and digital publications today.

Just as libraries have historically provided reading rooms for users to access and work with print collections, they now provide common spaces for them to access and work with digital collections.

Access and share your files online Work on files from anywhere Protect your important files Collaborate and share online

This article posits a definition and theory for "Library 2.0". It suggests that recent thinking describing the changing Web as "Web 2.0" will have substantial implications for libraries, and recognizes that while these implications keep very close to the history and mission of libraries, they still necessitate a new paradigm for librarianship. The paper applies the theory and definition to the practice of librarianship, specifically addressing how Web 2.0 technologies such as synchronous messaging and streaming media, blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging, RSS feeds, and mashups might intimate changes in how libraries provide access to their collections and user support for that access.

ScholarlyStats has been developed to provide information professionals with a single point of access to their vendor usage statistics. Providing faster access to consolidated data, it can help you to analyse usage of your online content more easily and more effectively.

Using this web site, Federal employees and the public can access resources for understanding and implementing the requirements of Section 508.

Knowledge organisation systems, such as taxonomies, thesauri or subject heading lists, play a fundamental role in information structuring and access. The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group aims at providing a model for representing such vocabularies on the Semantic Web: SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System). This document presents the preparatory work for a future version of SKOS. It lists representative use cases, which were obtained after a dedicated questionnaire was sent to a wide audience. It also features a set of fundamental or secondary requirements derived from these use cases, that will be used to guide the design of SKOS.

The U.S. Congress has network neutrality under scrutiny and perhaps under threat. Network neutrality is the concept that broadband carriers will neither interfere with nor inhibit the free flow of information over the Internet. A bill, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Efficiency Act of 2006, or COPE (aka the Barton-Rush Act), is making its way through the House of Representatives. It could empower commercial broadband carriers like Sprint and AT&T to manipulate Internet transactions by prohibiting or slowing access to and transmission of specific sites. In effect, the buzz is that the House proposes to cede control of the Internet to the telecoms and cable companies. By contrast, there are bills being introduced in the Senate that seek to protect network neutrality. First among these is S. 2360, the proposed Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006. 1, 2