Yet community networks remain an important strategy for the community s institutions to collaborate on the delivery of local online information services. Every community urban, rural, big or small has a story to tell. As we move increasingly into an electronically-driven world, this story needs to be told online. Today every community can easily connect to the worldwide Internet so that distant people and locals alike can tap into the local information base and experience almost firsthand the benefits a particular community has to offer. With worldwide connectivity, even the smallest, most rural communities can become an important part of the burgeoning global village.
Every community can compete on a global scale.
This book has been designed as a handbook to help you to conceptualize community networking initiatives for your own community, to give you an overview of the issues and activities you might consider, and to alert you to helpful organizations and valuable resources to consult as you work to develop and deliver these important services. Since the world of online communications continues to evolve and grow at such a rapid pace, I think you will find this book merely complements what you can find online. I do hope that reading this book will save you countless hours of surfing and will enable you to access quickly the online sources of greatest benefit to you. Above all, I hope this book will encourage you to get involved with this important strategy to move all of our communities and all of our citizens fully into the Information Age of the 21 st century.