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LibertyNet

By Daniel Updegrove

• What are the hours of the Free Library?
• What hotels serve the western suburbs?
• What is the next program of the Delaware Valley Total Quality?
• Consortium or the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia?

Such diverse information about our region is now available on the Internet, thanks to a non-profit program of the University City Science Center called LibertyNet. LibertyNet provides an electronic home for Philadelphia area non-profit organizations, schools, government agencies, and businesses seeking to showcase their programs and services to the region and to the world.

LibertyNet currently supports over 100 information providers, each of which makes available one or more pages of multimedia material using the World-Wide Web hypertext markup language (HTML). Browsers then use popular Mosaic, Netscape, or Lynx software "clients" to retrieve and display the information, which is organized by subject and indexed for easy searching. LibertyNet (URL http://www.libertynet.org/) is directly accessible from the Penn home page.

Launched in 1993, LibertyNet has received financial and in-kind support from Bell Atlantic, Ben Franklin Technology Center of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Digital Equipment Company, Free Library of Philadelphia, School District of Philadelphia, Telecommunications Education Fund, University City Science Center, William Penn Foundation, and WHYY, as well as the University. SEAS '94 graduate Nathan Gasser serves as principal architect of the LibertyNet database.

Future plans call for a network of public information access kiosks, a dial-up modem pool, and extensive outreach programs. In the interim, anyone affiliated with a Delaware Valley organization that seeks to make its information resources available on the Internet is encouraged to call (215) 387-2255 or send e-mail to webmaster@libertynet.org.