Text-based Internet

[Bill Crosbie]

At 04:57 PM 1/21/97 -0800, Robert Sullivan wrote:
>
>This arrived in my mailbox right after I had posted a related question to a
>list for NY libraries.  I'm trying to help a friend at a large library whose
>computer staff thinks that Lynx is dying off and libraries should take money
>from their acquisitions budgets to fund a Netscape or IE connection.
>
><that bubbling sound was my mouth foaming>
>
>Certainly, many new users coming online are doing so with a PPP connection
>through a commercial provider, and some libraries are heading that way, either
>because they are starting fresh or just migrating (as we will this year).
>
>However, I would argue that much of the Lynx user base does so either out of
>necessity (can't see the screen, can only afford a text connection) or because
>they don't care to wait for graphics to download.  I'm lucky enough to be
>within a local phone call of numerous ISPs, but much of the population in the
>eight counties served by our two-system consortium is not.
>
>Bob Sullivan                               scp_sulli at sals.edu
>Schenectady County Public Library (NY)     http://www.scpl.org


If I may just add on to what Bob has said.  Not only do we need to consider
rural America.  We need to consider the rest of the world for some of the
resources we create.  

The truth of the matter is that (in my limited experience) the
telecommunications infrastructure of growing areas of the world is ill
equipped to handle the sorts of connections that we assume.  When I worked
for Brookdale Community College, which has an extension site in Quito,
Ecuador, for example, we learned that our site was thrilled to get a 2400
baud connection.

Food for thought.

Bill Crosbie
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