The market place cannot be relied upon to screen out undesirable material, regulate its content or protect people from vested interests - the experience of the unregulated Internet and the fact that, left to itself, the French Minitel service has been given over largely to sex lines, shows this. Ensuring that commercial providers support lifelong learning In local government, grants of planning permission are frequently tied to the provision of some kind of community gain. Similar mechanisms should be set in place in the allocation of digital frequencies. Commercial providers cannot by their nature deliver the full public service support required by lifelong learning free of charge. Therefore there needs to be a clear distinction between commercial provision of content and public service support.
Public libraries have an important contribution to make.
Their special collections will offer valuable local information input, and they have a ready-made customer base of their own, so will be of value to commercial providers. Their services must not be technology driven, and examples of good practice in content provision will be necessary. The arrival of digital television makes the full implementation of the Public Libraries Network essential. Community access must be protected Regulation of content provision will clearly need to be driven by economic considerations, such as the rate at which commercial providers begin to profit from electronic commerce. Nevertheless, steps must be taken to protect local content, and potential providers will need to form partnerships at local and regional level to ensure that access to British regional and local content is guaranteed.