Community Technology Centers:

Two of the case studies were business people. Ted Desrosiers is an investment broker who works in Vineyard Haven[5] for Advest, a regional investment firm. He characterized his business as one that could be done anywhere. Hilltown Distribution (a pseudonym) is a home-based business operated by "Ann Blake" and her husband in rural western Massachusetts. They distribute plastic food delivery equipment and plastic educational equipment nationwide. The couple contracts for the manufacture of this equipment with a variety of western and central Massachusetts plastics manufacturers. They warehouse small amounts of their products at their house, and contract with their manufacturers to store additional products on site.

One case study came from each of the remaining potential user groups The Nantucket School District has a library media specialist, Suzanne Gardner, who was interviewed. The Town of Sherborn provides a case study of rural town government. Susan Adler, the Town Administrator provided information. Dr. Todd LePine is an physician with a family-oriented practice of internal medicine in Stockbridge. The Graves Memorial Library is the public library of Sunderland,[6] meeting the "popular materials" needs of the community. The director of the library, Alison Ernst, was interviewed for this case study. The Venture Center, in Greenfield, is the business incubator with the most rural location in Massachusetts.[7] Kathleen Jaworski, head of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation (CDC) and the Venture Center, was interviewed.

These case studies indicated that information and communication technology has a role to play in maintaining and improving the quality of local services in rural Massachusetts. This may mean providing local health care professionals with access to the most complete information databases on treatment options, or allowing them to keep up their professional associations while continuing to work in a rural location. At the Graves Memorial Library, it means providing access to more information than any small library could afford to acquire. For the Sherborn town government, it means improved communication between local and state government and between local government and residents. And for Ted Desrosiers, it means being able to conduct business from an island on par with his colleagues. In short, these case studies tend to re-confirm that information and communication technology is something about which rural communities should be concerned.

Desrosiers  Hilltown    Nantucket   Sherborn    LePine      Graves      Venture
    *          X           X           X           X           *           X
                     * Currently already receives assistance.

In some cases, information about how to use technology was holding up its development in the community. A barrier to the development of a computer network in the Nantucket schools and in the broader community is a lack of knowledge about what exactly is involved in building one. Gardner felt the lack of a resource person who knows the "nuts and bolts" of how such a system would work could hold up any grant application. While Adler is looking forward to testing out MAGNet, others in the Sherborn town government have been slow to respond to a questionnaire asking them how MAGNet could serve their needs. Blake stated that she does not have much time to devote to learning about new information and communication technology or to integrating it into Hilltown Distribution. Jaworski stated that the Venture Center didn't already use on-line services because she didn't have the time to learn how to use them.

Some cases depended on outside resource people to advise them on technology issues. This is in fact an illustration of how a community technology center can be useful. At the Graves Memorial Library, Ernst seeks out people in the community, at the Western Massachusetts library system and at Board of Library Commissioners that can help her supplement her working knowledge of computers and telecommunications. Desrosiers' most important way of getting current information is via a package of computer network services supplied to his office by Advest. Desrosiers is receiving a steady stream of telecommunications and computer technology updates over time. Advest performs the function of digesting new technology and reporting to brokers how they might use it in their business.

These problems support an information-resource role for a community technology center. The Franklin County CDC is an important source of information on business development for its tenants and other businesses in the community, and because of its location a convenient one. Just as a the CDC draws on its experience with businesses to give its tenants feedback on their businesses, so could the staff of a community technology center draw on the experience of using technology to assist many different technology users.

Hilltown Distribution relies heavily on "low-tech" communications and distribution networks that are basic and universal: voice telephone, mail, and United Parcel Service. (UPS does all their shipping, coming five days a week.) This contains a lesson: making a new means of doing things available may produce innovative ends. UPS's policy of giving rural areas the same kind of delivery service as urban areas makes Hilltown Distribution work in its out-of-the-way location. At the Nantucket High School, the telephone is used to a great degree by faculty and students, in part because there are phones in every room, including classrooms. Students can use the phone system for research on projects, and thus are not limited to sources in their own library. Adler described the Town of Sherborn's fax machine as a tool for increasing the flexibility of public access. The fax allows Adler and citizens involved in town boards or projects to send back and forth drafts of reports, even when the citizens weren't available during the day. This allows this collaborative work to be more feasible. Introducing new technology now more available in urban areas to the residents, institutions, and businesses of a rural community may open up new, unexpected possibilities.

Still others saw their use of telecommunications and computers in the wider context of their community. In general, Gardner sees the Nantucket schools lagging behind the community in computers and telecommunications. She feels that many students have access to on-line services and CD-ROM in their homes. She also sees lone eagles (though she didn't use the term), real estate offices and banks on the island that are more sophisticated with computers than the schools, and sees a need for students to be adequately prepared to work in this world.

Desrosiers  Hilltown    Nantucket   Sherborn    LePine      Graves      Venture
                            X                      X           X           X

Table 3 shows the current extent of sharing at the cases studied. Three have telecommunications or computer equipment or services that others in the community either use or want to use. The Nantucket schools have used MCET's satellite programming to varying degrees since 1990. Not only does the school district use the satellite capabilities for its own use, but it also extends use to the community. For example, it has allowed groups to participate in national teleconferences, and state workers to participate in training sessions. The community use of the satellite video system is an important part of its justification at the school system. At a more low-tech level, the Graves Memorial Library has a public use photocopier which gets heavy use. Ernst believes it may be the only public use copier in Sunderland.

                                   Des-   Hill-  Nan-   Sher-  LePine  Graves  Ven-
                                 rosiers  town  tucket  born                   ture
Have technology equipment or                      X                      X       X
services in demand in community
Use shared equipment or services    X             X                      X       X 

The Nantucket schools, the Graves Memorial Library, and the Venture Center also use shared telecommunications or computer equipment or services, as does Desrosiers. At the Graves Memorial Library inter-library loan via C/W Mars, an automated resource sharing network, allows people to access a broader range of materials. For Desrosiers, telecommunications and computers allow sharing support services over distance. A fax in the office allows the Vineyard Haven office to share secretarial services with an office in Falmouth and allows it access to additional computer network services at the same Cape Cod office. It is also a way for many Advest offices to share sales ideas and updates. The network provides a link with client information and accounting functions kept at a Advest corporate headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut. The sharing of resources also extends to the computer network itself. Although there is only one computer in the office with Desrosiers, it is shared by two full time brokers and by one other who commutes from Cape Cod twice a week.

Despite this evidence in favor of technology sharing possibilities, it would probably be difficult for institutional users, such as the town government and schools, to co-locate on a technology basis. (In some rural towns, schools are in another town.) Moreover, institutions such as the Sherborn town government and the Nantucket schools are large enough that they have the ability to acquire such things as multiple personal computers on their own. However, larger, more novel, or less-frequently used technology items, such as video conferencing may be more appropriate for them to share, while smaller users may also wish to take advantage of shared access to equipment or services that are more common in larger institutions.

These conditions suggest that a community technology center may have a limited amount of shared equipment, only those items which some users are willing to have located off their main site. However, this could perform the important function of introducing new technology to users in the community. Over time, the demand for a particular technology may change. For example, tenants at the Venture Center were interested several years ago in shared computers. Now that most of the businesses own computers, this demand is less. Even after a new technology becomes common, some in society may still need to have assisted access. The Graves Memorial Library is interested in offering Internet access, a service that the library is supposed to have soon through C/W Mars. A concern of Ernst is the gap between the information haves and have-nots. A community technology center may need to plan on often being a transitional home for technology, and plan its future flexibly.

                                  Desro-  Hill-  Nan-  Sher  LePine  Graves  Ven-
                                  siers   town  tucket  -born                ture 
Want to connect to local                          X      X*     X       X*
networks
Want to connect to non-local        *       X     X*     X      X       *      X
computer networks
* Already using telecommunications networks other than fax or voice 
telephone.   

However, the creation of community networks is a separate strategy from a community technology center. Some potential functions of a community technology center complement a community network, such as training, education, and consulting. In some areas they can be two different ends to the same means, such as providing access to the Internet. Whether or not rural Massachusetts communities can or chose to develop community networks will likely affect how or whether community technology centers are developed in host communities.

These issues may be present in different ways in different communities. Some rural communities, like Ainsworth, are remote enough that they must provide locally any equipment and services that their residents may use. In exurban regions, like Fredericksburg, residents are part of metropolitan areas that, as a whole, have a large amount of technology and services. In the former, community technology centers are a way of providing access where there may have been none before. In the latter, they are ways of applying technology closer to home. In Massachusetts, with so many rural areas so close to major cities, potential community technology centers in many situations will likely fit the exurban type.

The smaller businesses, smaller school systems, smaller town governments, and other small organizations found in rural communities can less afford to experiment with technology on their own. These organizations and individuals as well may ask themselves such questions as, is the latest computer peripheral or the latest in video conferencing worth acquiring? They may not even be sure about what it can do. Some may eventually decide to make a fuller commitment to a new piece of hardware, software, or service. A community technology center can lower the risk of technology investments by allowing people, businesses, and organizations to try out a technology before investing in it. In the meantime, though, a technology center can provide a transition and an introduction to new technology. In Ainsworth, people used a wide variety of software and about twenty percent of the individuals using the technology center in its first seven months went on to buy their own computer. Because of this, it is important that community technology centers not try to only meet the present technology needs of the community, but offer people as much as possible the opportunity to experiment with hardware, software, and services that may become future needs.

In order to learn about new technology, many people need not just access, but a means of understanding that new technology. The most basic form of communication is person to person. Technology complements, but does not replace, human interaction. This was reaffirmed in many of the case studies. People need not only to be given technology, but given assistance in using it. Telecottages provide consultants, televillage centers will provide Information Brokers, and the Ainsworth Technology Center provides classes and trainers. In Massachusetts, the goal of the Board of Library Commissioners is to train librarians to be resource persons for electronic information. A "community technology consultant," based at a technology center, could provide the human interface to new technology. Moreover, by providing a focal point for technology in the community, technology users could exchange information among themselves, just as businesses do in the Venture Center. Information and communication through technology is really just a subset of information and communication in general.

Not all the benefits of a community technology center need to happen at the center. In European telecottages, the staff of the telecottage also provide consulting services in the community. A community technology center could also provide a local capacity to evaluate and implement technology. Small rural organizations and institutions may not have the time or resources to become expert in issues of information or telecommunications technology. The information consultant can provide this expertise locally.

Many writers voice concern that telecommunications and computers will facilitate the "remote control" of rural areas. It is also possible that telecommunications can be the means by which professionals and the well- educated, already familiar with computers, support a new rural or exurban lifestyle. Therefore, the strategies that rural communities adopt to deal with information and communication technology must be ones that also increase local saviness about technology. Training and learning is the partial antidote to the risks of telecommunications and telecomputing for rural communities. Rural workers and students could benefit from a community technology center if it is used as a place where they can learn new job skills, and if it is a place where new businesses can more easily access information and communication tools that help them create work locally.

Community technology centers should not only be technology centers, but ideally also community centers. Many existing telecenters reflect this notion--telecottages have community meeting spaces, telework centers may provide meeting rooms, and the NCDC provides a staff person who answers questions on many different community issues. A community technology center cast as a community center has the potential to help counteract the tendency of telecommunications to break down a sense of local community. This is especially true when the current situation takes many people out of the community, and technology has the potential to bring them back in. Fredericksburg illustrates this situation well. Telecommuting is taking people off the road and keeping them near home. At the same time, the telework center is planning to become more of a community resource. Even if many in rural Massachusetts do not commute as long as those in Fredericksburg, more workers in rural Massachusetts commute to urban Massachusetts than to other rural towns (MacDougall and Campbell 1995, 74). Even the very act of pooling resources may strengthen community ties (Making the Unavailable Available Multi-purpose community technology centers are promising because telecommunications and information technology generally are means, not ends in themselves. The same infrastructure can enable different users to do different things. The key is to recognize that an information and communication infrastructure is not only for students, or library catalogues, or town government networks. These are only the applications of a set of technologies that are potentially usable by a large number of organizations, businesses, and residents of any community.

One can classify telecommunications and computer equipment by cost into the "high-end" and the "low-end." By spreading the cost of "high-end" equipment and services over many users, a community technology center can make it more affordable. The community use of Nantucket school system's satellite conferencing system is a good example. On the other end, people with lower incomes may require some level of public access to telecommunications and computers that many find affordable. This is the mission of many affiliates of the Playing to Win Network. These cost issues suggest a role for technology access at a shared location in rural communities.

The community technology center is also a tool for making telecommunications services available before they can be economically distributed throughout a rural community. Almost by definition, rural areas have higher costs per user for distributing some key telecommunications services because of their lower population density. Telephone network capabilities are greatest in the central places of rural communities in Massachusetts. Some rural towns in Massachusetts lack cable TV service. In some rural parts of Massachusetts, these obstacles have been overcome. In others, a community technology center may be the best way, at least in the short term, to provide access to information networks outside the community.

Some of the primary obstacles to the success of a community technology center may lie within local communities themselves, barriers which prevent different people and institutions from working effectively together. Individuals may make a key difference in the development of community technology centers. In the case of the NCDC Technology Center Ainsworth was fortunate to have enthusiastic and knowledgeable people on the Technology Committee to jump-start the center's development. It is important to recruit both people on the local level who understand the technology and people who can build support in the community.

Despite the importance of local efforts, there is ample evidence to support the conclusion that rural community technology centers will be more successful when they are not completely free-standing. Networks of support, information, and assistance make the task of the community technology centers more doable. Fortunately, the very equipment and services that a community technology center is likely to have are conducive to the formation of networks for sharing information, ideas, and work.

In fact, even without planning for them, small proto-community technology centers are likely to spring up all across Massachusetts in the next five to ten years, though they will not be called that. Instead, they will be called libraries and schools and town offices. Networks and technology are coming to rural Massachusetts, at least piecemeal, driven by state-wide initiatives. If they are at first places for learning, training, and exposure to new technology, rural community technology centers may be smaller efforts than if they were to serve other functions such as telework centers, government offices, or technology-based business incubators.

It probably is not necessary to start all aspects of community technology centers at once, but it is important to leave them room to grow into multi-purpose institutions. Community technology centers should be "organic," starting with some base functions, and then adding functions as local people and organizations develop the demand for them. This adding- on pattern is being followed by the successful Fredericksburg Center. This means that while a rural community technology center may begin within one local institution, its developers should have a plan for growing it to take advantage of opportunities. Still another way of developing community technology centers is to follow a more regional plan. In this model, one larger center serves as the host for the most sophisticated and complete set of equipment and services, while smaller satellite centers provide links with the main center. This is the model being used by the Old North End Community Technology Center.

Most telecenters have begun with a subsidy of some sort. It is reasonable to expect that without an external up-front source of funds, rural community technology centers will be difficult to establish in Massachusetts. Some have, however, become financially self-sufficient. Diversity is a key to on-going financial support. Despite the value of independence, existing public institutions can play an important role in supporting community technology centers. Business incubators typically operate with an anchor tenant: a tenant that produces a large and steady demand for space. This provides stability and a base of support from which to operate. Similarly, public institutions can anchor a community technology center. Those which already have relatively large or well-established bases of personnel or equipment are in a better position to contribute their demand for technology and services to the pool of community technology center users, thereby giving a stronger base of support. A good candidate in many communities may be the educational system. The Points of Presence initiative provides an example of a plan to use a network for educational use as a base for other regional networking needs.

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Last updated July 22, 1995
by Christopher J. Campbell

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