In this section, we share examples of best practices in the delivery of community information.
 

Three Rivers Free-Net
"Free to the People" is something of a mantra for the librarians at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP). This phrase, originally spoken by Andrew Carnegie, the library's founder, is the first thing you see as you approach the stone facade of CLP's main branch. The ideals of community, public service, and access that the words imply are ones that all public librarians strive to achieve. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the Three Rivers Free-Net (TRFN), an electronic community network funded by the CLP, housed at the main library, and run by librarians would take these words to heart. (Read more....)
 

Community Resource Database of Long Island
According to George Elliot there is a synergy between private and public: "There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life." However, in actual practice, the worlds of the private and the public are oftentimes decidedly more separate, especially where the private and public sectors are concerned. This is what makes the Community Resource Database of Long Island (or CRD) so unusual. (Read more....)
 

North Star Net
NorthStarNet, a community information network serving the Chicago area, has a large website that provides access to, among other things, lots of well-organized, searchable local information, an easy-to-use interface, and a community events calendar. One of the most interesting aspects of NSN, however, flows not from the content it provides so much as from the structure of the organization: a decentralized system in which a great deal of power and control rests with NorthStarNet's member libraries. (Read more....)