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Product Description If your library wants to be a player in the local information community, linking patrons to Internet services, these eighteen readable, up-to-date reports will show you what is actually being done elsewhere. Here are libraries that have become community gateways to the world of Internet. Gathered in spring 1995, the reports detail Internet services in all sizes of libraries, from one-telephone outposts in rural New York State to Stanford University's immense electronic matrix. Included are state educational agencies and public, academic, and special libraries. Amazon.com Review Libraries and librarians are at the forefront of the information revolution. This book, from the American Library Association, presents 18 extremely readable case studies on how individual libraries are meeting the challenge. What's interesting is the contrast between the smallest libraries in rural communities and huge, sophisticated libraries at places like Stanford University. It's not always the smaller places learning from the larger ones, either. The book surveys the services libraries can offer, and opportunities they present for librarians and those who use libraries. From Library Journal In reaction to these times of confusion, complexity, budgetary terror, and the questioning of the library's role, the authors of The Internet Troubleshooter (ALA, 1994) here provide an introduction to establishing a library Internet connection. Valauskas, an LJ columnist, and John, assistant university librarian at the University of Illinois-Chicago, have compiled a collection of reports describing how various types of libraries?from huge academic systems to tiny rural one-phone-line libraries?have managed the challenges of joining the net. Arranged in six sections, the 19 fairly brief chapters cover such topics as launching public-private ventures for Internet access, establishing statewide information syst