
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 2, 1995                   TAG: 9504060016
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: G-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EQUAL ACCESS

WOMEN AND minorties alike cite the "old-boy network" as a barrier they have trouble cracking, a near-closed circle they can never fully penetrate in their career climbs. And, in truth, most white males can't either.

Well, forget the "old boys," for now anyway.

More important these days is to break into that global network of information known as the Internet. And women and minorities already have some catching up to do.

Women, minorities, the poor, the elderly - all need to recognize the growing need to be comfortable in cyberspace, where a world of information is available if you just know how to get it.

The Internet, which approximates the universe of cyberspace, is a web of connections among computers and databases around the world. Right now, finding something both useful and accessible remains too rare an achievement on the time-devouring net. But computers gradually are taking over the world. Who'll be the players?

In the Information Age, knowledge is power. Yet the Census Bureau reports that only 14 percent of adult blacks and Latinos have a computer at home, while 27 percent of whites do. And almost half of white workers use computers on the job, while just over a third of black employees do and fewer than a third of Latinos.

Newt Gingrich has suggested that the federal government empower the underclass by giving every poor person a laptop. After we all stop laughing and catch our breath, we may find this is not such an outrageous suggestion. Technology changes so quickly that computers that are out of date, but useable, are available for little or nothing.

As important as getting the hardware in people's hands is developing federal telecommunications policies that will ensure that, in the scramble for dominance among the cable, local phone and long-distance phone companies and others, market power does not end up so concentrated as to discourage the healthy competition needed to rein in prices.

Also necessary are provisions to assure that the information and services that technology makes possible will serve community needs, as well as the demands of individual consumers, and that no one will be denied access to information or services that should be public.

A model for the future that deserves a lot more attention, in all these respects, is the public library.

by CNB