They are a major resource for data, for analysis, AND for hands-on assistance. The public could, and should, use this resource for local or community benefit. Too often, in the past, universities have been isolated from the very communities in which they are located. Information systems are proving an ideal mechanism to connect the two and serve both sides well. For example, there's a program at UC San Diego, at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, that gives computers to teenage girls.
Mentors supervise their research assignments.
The teenagers, in turn, teach younger girls in the fourth through sixth grades. The girls learn to network, to use the web, to use their computers on science projects. If a girl finishes enough assignments, she gets to keep her computer. The girls learn the knowledge. They learn the lessons of research.