No matter how friendly the user interface, how many modems a community network has, or how useful its information, in order to reach those most in need, the training, support and physical access provided by community centers are crucial. Likewise, those involved with center-based technology access and programming are appreciating more and more the importance of online communications and resources. For these centers, telecommunications is becoming an application as basic as word processing, databases, spreadsheets, graphics, and desktop publishing. To take full advantage of these resources, centers need to provide participants as well as staff with individual email accounts, as much high speed connectivity and multimedia capacity as possible, links to appropriate web sites, and the ability to find these sites and develop and publish original content. In addition, Plugged In's EPANet in East Palo Alto and the Hill House Community Access Network in Pittsburgh represent center-based access programs establishing community networks as part of their mission.
Hybridization is common.
In northern Oregon, the Columbia Technology Center in St. Helens is also a nonprofit Internet Service Provider. Community technology centers provide a grounding for community networking, a social technology laboratory to test out the possibilities for reaching those most likely to be on the other side of the technology gap, a place where evaluative criteria can be developed and put to use in clear and meaningful ways. For community networkers, such centers widen the conception of community, provide a bridge to the inner-city, and create active political alliances. There are currently struggles going on in many states to include both community networks and a broad range of nonprofits with center-based access in the establishment of universal service programs, to go beyond the pipes and hardware for schools, libraries, and rural heath centers that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has established. The development of community networks and neighborhood centers is not only an economically practical strategy on the road towards universal access, it's an eminently sensible social and political approach, too, strengthening and building local institutions that are the foundation of democratic self-help and empowerment.