REply: Support Schlesinger--Small Communities

[Fred Stoss <acsu.buffalo.edu>]

Hamilton Brown raises a very good point about information access and the information technologies delivering it. It is correct to assume that small communities would be limited by access to computers and an understanding of the VAST numbers of rources of environmental information. Add to the category of "small communities" any number of other subgroups, such as "neighborhoods," "blocks," "projects," etc. where environmental issues are no less real than in larger municipal, urban, suburban, etc. infrastructures. 

However, you should not discount the number of public libraries that are supported by communites and serve those very same communities, neighborhoods, and blocks. Our public library systems have the facilities, the resources, and the staff to get the process started. What is needed: more and better access to information and librarians that know about the myriad of data and information resources available to them. Providing environmental information from and at the community levels will be one of the discussion topics later in this National Dialogue.

Don't be surprised to see this librarian repeatedly tout the library as a major facility and the librarian as a major player in the environmental decission-making process.

Fred Stoss