This situation is changing for residents of the Michigan communities of Flint and surrounding Genesee County. They're now finding home-town information available through their own community network linked to the Internet. The School of Information and several Flint-area institutions led an effort to create an Internet Training and Community Networking Center at the Flint Public Library. Experts say that community networks, now in their infancy, have the potential of being as important to the 21st century as electricity was to the 20th. The Internet Training and Community Networking Center is the first of several "living laboratories" to be funded from a Kellogg Foundation grant to the School of Information and from other sources. Working with SI are the Flint Public Library, the Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative and the U-M Flint Community Stabilization and Revitalization Project.

"It's always been easier to find out about the weather in Shanghai through the Internet than to get a copy of the city council minutes in your own town," says Associate Professor Joan Durrance, the principal investigator for the project and a community information specialist, in explaining the need for community networks. This year the public may tap into the resources of the World Wide Web through computers in public libraries, accessing information providers like the Genesee Freenet. It is anticipated that by 1996, area librarians will train the public to access the same resources from the home or office.

Officials from the U-M and local communities dedicated the training center at the Flint Public Library on March 10, 1995. Steve Cisler, a senior scientist at Apple Computer, Inc., and a community networking pioneer, was the guest speaker. Cisler has published numerous articles on community networking. Already, he notes, community networks in one form or another are in such diverse areas as Boulder, Colorado; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Champaign, Illinois; and parts of Cuba. He sees libraries as an integral part of the community network movement, since libraries are a natural focal point for information.

Funding for the approximately $600,000 initiative reflects the collaborative nature of the community project itself. SI allocated funds from a Kellogg Foundation grant; and the Flint Public Library, the Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative, the Library of Michigan Internet Training Center Program, and the U-M Flint Community Stabilization and Revitalization Project contributed major support. In addition, the Apple Library of Tomorrow (ALOT) program provided seven Power Macintosh computers, a printer and a digital camera. This is one of several community networking projects in the United States funded by the ALOT program.

The Flint community network project has hired Sheryl Cormicle Knox, a 1993 SILS graduate who has recently done Internet work at CIESIN, the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network, in Saginaw, Michigan. Knox works with an advisory committee consisting of Professor Durrance; Gloria Coles, director of the Flint Public Library; Sara Behrman, director of the Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative; Charles Hansen, assistant director of the Flint Public Library; and John Coleman of the U-M Flint CSR Project.

This project seeks to develop a community networking model which will revolutionize the way public libraries, and the professionals who practice in them, provide information to their communities.

The Flint project is also a result of collaborative efforts of librarians in the Flint area who will engage in a variety of activities designed to provide digital information to residents.

The community network project obtained a jump start from the current CSR Internet Training Initiative, another partnership created between SI and 30 Flint-Genesee area librarians. It is funded by a Community Stabilization and Revitalization Project grant from the Flint campus of the University of Michigan and the Flint Public Library. In the next phase, trainees will become publishers on the Internet by creating documents for the World Wide Web. These librarians will have the skills needed to use and add value to distributed networked information.

This new project is strengthened by space, equipment, and staffing from Flint Public Library and the Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative; and computers from the Library of Michigan's Internet Training Center project.

In addition to his appearance in Flint, Cisler presented the annual Beta Phi Mu Lecture on the U-M Ann Arbor campus. During his visit, Cisler met with students, faculty, citizens, and officials from Michigan and Ohio who are interested in community networks.