Community System Users and Uses

Abstract

As the role of the Inter net in everyday life has expanded, community computing systems have been at the forefront of making new electronic tools for information access, education, and communication available to the public. This work presents findings based on the Prairienet community computing system that may help other systems to make decisions about which services to offer, to evaluate the relative worth of local materials versus providing access to Internet-based materials, and allocate resources such as modems and staff time. The core question for the work is, “to what extent is Prairienet serving its intended purpose as a community forum for education and information access?” This report only addresses the question through the analysis of usage patterns and logs. Future work will include a user survey and discussion of external activities such as public-access sites and workshops which may enhance Prairienet’s purpose.

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