N2R-LLL Participants
What is the background of N2R?
N2R, a tax exempt, 501 (c)(3) United Way
Certified agency, is one of the first regional community networks in development
in the nation. It was formed in 1995 by twenty-five organizations, including
government, hospitals, libraries, k-12 education, higher education, nonprofits,
and computer user groups. For two months the organizations met weekly to realize
their common goal; developing a shared infrastructure for delivery of regional
information, training, and education.
How did N2R get its initial funding?
United Way of Greater Sacramento Area
provided initial expenses for the developing organization. Apple Corporation, Inc. donated the Web
Server and supporting equipment for the Regional Directory.
The U.S. Department of Commerce Telecommunication Information Infrastructure Award Program has funded N2R
and other N2R - LLL participants through a grant to the Sacramento County Office of Education, entitled:
NET at TWO RIVERS, Literacy and Lifelong Learning (N2R-LLL).
What are the N2R-LLL Grant Activities?
- Project Narrative
- Public Sites
- User Groups
N2R turns to its partnerships with computer user
groups to develop the labor pool. Northern California is fortunate to have the
4th largest PC User Group in the nation, the Sacramento PC Users Group and also the MacNexus User Group, - organizations which have provided hundreds of hours of volunteer
support. MacNexus is responsible for securing a large equipment donation from Apple Corporation, for programming the
regional WWW directory database and providing system administration.
- Public Training Exchanged For Community Support
Support personnel for the sites receive free public training in exchange for volunteer
hours provided back to the community. These people assist the public in
accessing Internet information on such vital themes as disaster preparedness,
wellness, job seeking skills, voter information, child abuse prevention and
crime prevention. The primary venue for the volunteer training is California State University Sacramento.
CSUS provides its training lab for the N2R classes of Basic Internet, Advanced
Internet, HTML (Programming) and Sensitivity.
- On-line Literacy Tutorials
The volunteers receive targeted training in the use of on-line literacy tutorials developed by N2R participant, Outreach Technical
Assistance Network. The mass distribution of the Internet provides a
cost-effective vehicle for addressing a problem of national proportion such as
illiteracy.
What territory does N2R serve?
That's a very hard question because: Interest in N2R is growing and geography doesn't have the same influence on-line as in the physical world.
The Co-Executive Directors originally envisioned a Sacramento Community Network but interest grew rapidly. By the time the first project went out for funding, N2R involved participants from fifteen counties and two states. In retrospect this makes sense because Sacramento is the capital of the State, and information generated here has relevance beyond the Sacramento county.
Internet access is a different issue and one which is strongly influenced by geography. N2R users should access the Internet the most cost-efficient and effective way for them.
Is N2R the only community net within the fifteen counties?
No. Several other nets provide services to their communities and also collaborate with N2R. The directors of many of these nets have expressed interest in supporting each other, sharing common resources, supporting other community nets in development, promoting universal access in the region, continuing to work out the technical conditions that support open information flow, pondering together the issues of security, reliability, privacy, intellectual property rights and sustainability, growing together toward systematic, cost-effective integration of technologies involving higher bandwidth, and, most importantly, promoting community use of the Internet so that our citizens learn about and use its power to effect positive social change.
Where are the N2R sites?
N2R Public Sites
Perspectives:
What does U.S. Representative Robert Matsui say about N2R?
"N2R has recognized with this project that information is key for individual success and self-reliance," U.S. Representative Robert Matsui said. "I have long been concerned about the widening gap between those with access to the resources of the information age and those without. Sacramento will now become one of the few communities in the nation actively addressing this problem."
