The Blacksburg Electronic Village
http://www.bev.net/
Facts about the BEV
The BEV is one of the oldest Internet-based community networks in the country and has one of the largest proportions of online citizens (more than 60%). There are several other distinguishing features:
- It is a public-private partnership with the town, a research university, and a major phone company.
- Local residents are actively engaged in a wide variety of network activities, such as contributing to the BEV Web site, using email to keep in touch with friends and family, discussing local issues online, and publishing information about themselves, their work, and their personal interests.
- The project includes citizens, government, and businesses. The BEV is committed to community-wide, ubiquitous and inexpensive access for all members of the community. Through strong cooperative efforts with the public schools and the public library, all school children and citizens who desire it have free, direct access to the Internet, including personal electronic mail accounts.
- Citizens may choose several connection methods, including dial-up access through several local Internet Service Providers; ISDN; Ethernet provided by the BEV, Bell Atlantic, and other ISPs; or access through public Internet workstations at libraries and schools.
- The BEV is part of Net.Work.Virginia, a statewide ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) broadband network. The BEV provides backbone DNS services for the entire network.
Charlottes's Web!
http://www.charweb.org/
All About Charlotte's Web:
The Basics
CHARLOTTE'S WEB COMMUNITY NETWORK is a regional community network. We serve 14 counties with access, content, training and support in electronic communication. It always will be under construction.
We provide a range of free services and also provide "wide-area" intranet and various Internet and networking services to nonprofits and small governments on a fee-for-service basis.
The network began as a citizens' initiative in February 1993. Following a Town Meeting in September 1993, committees formed and information gathering began, although there was no computer system at the time.
In the late spring of 1994, the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, one of CHARLOTTE's WEB's earliest insitiutional partners, donated a computer and five telephone lines to the network. Charlotte's Web went online with area information -- and no Internet connection -- on June 17, 1994.
THE WEB connects you to libraries, government services and documents (such as city council minutes or tax records), business, consumer, medical and legal information. It can even help you to fix your car or landscape your yard.
With THE WEB, you don't have to leave work or home to get information. It is available 24 hours a day. You can exchange messages with friends and family anywhere in the world using electronic mail (e-mail).
THE WEB offers your children a way to talk with kids across town or across the world and work together on educational projects. School children can trade information with classes from Maine to Australia or ask experts for help answering tough questions.
Parents and teachers can strengthen their relationships, and home-to-school relationships using The WEB.
Organizations have access to free basic training and World Wide Web space for information sharing with the community, the region and the world.
Quick Visit to Gloucester's
ArtsGloucester Resources
FUNDING SOURCES?
Check out TIIAP
Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program National Telecommunications and information Administration U.S. Department of Commerce
Non-profit Resources
The Benton Foundation http://www.benton.org The Benton Foundation works to realize the social benefits made possible by the public interest use of communications. Bridging the worlds of philanthropy, public policy, and community action, Benton seeks to shape the emerging communications environment and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. Through demonstration projects, media production and publishing, research, conferences, and grantmaking, Benton probes relationships between the public, corporate, and nonprofit sectors to address the critical questions for democracy in the information age. Other projects at Benton include:
Kids Campaigns <http://www.kidscampaigns.org/>
Open Studio: The Arts Online <http://www.openstudio.org/>
Destination Democracy <http://www.destinationdemocracy.org/>
Sound Partners for Community Health <http://www.soundpartners.org/>
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