================================================================= ALAWON Volume 7, Number 28 ISSN 1069-7799 March 19, 1998 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (83 lines) HIGHLIGHTS OF CONNECTING ALL AMERICANS CONFERENCE _________________________________________________________________ HIGHLIGHTS OF CONNECTING ALL AMERICANS CONFERENCE On February 24-27, state, public and academic librarians attended the "Connecting All Americans for the 21st Century: Telecommunications Links in Low Income & Rural Communities" conference in Washington, D.C. The central theme of the conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Public Utility Law Project of New York (PULP), was to give all Americans access to basic and advanced telecommunications services at affordable rates. The conference featured demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies with the potential to bring services to traditionally underserved communities. Carla Hayden, director at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, spoke about ongoing efforts in Baltimore to extend services to underserved communities. Pratt's "A Whole New World" program (see http://www.pratt.lib.md.us/wnw/) provides children with access to and training in the use of the Internet. Hayden also spoke about Pratt's community outreach, which has focused on bringing members of the community who traditionally don't use libraries into the library and introducing them to the expanded services now available. Larry Irving, assistant secretary for Communications and Information at the Department of Commerce, highlighted the important role that libraries have played in bringing the information superhighway to all Americans. Quoting from ALA Office for Information Technology Policy statistics on library connectivity released last fall (see http://www.ala.org/oitp/research/plcon97sum/), Irving praised libraries for having dramatically increased public access to the Internet in recent years, but also urged libraries to focus their energy on rural, insular, and inner city audiences who are less likely to have access to advanced technologies at home. Vice President Al Gore restated the administration's continuing commitment to bring information access to every classroom and every community, and mentioned several federal programs, including the "E-rate" and the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP). Vice President Gore also highlighted a number of public-private partnerships aimed at bringing access to underserved communities. Other speakers included Don Tapscott, chair of Alliance for Converging Technologies and William E. Kennard, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Additional information, including Real Audio recordings of many of the speakers, is available online at http://www.pulpny.org/CAM/. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Andrew Magpantay Aleck Johnson All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================