Apple Technology Review, Fall 1997: Conference Report: Community Networking

About the Author

Steve Cisler manages network outreach in the Advanced Technology Group. His background is in public libraries, where he worked for 14 years before coming to Apple in 1988. He runs the Apple Library of Tomorrow program, which provides equipment and software for innovative research and demonstration projects in all types of libraries. Within the Advanced Technology Group he works on new information retrieval and communications research and has been involved in national information policy issues such as the public access issues to the Internet and has recently immersed himself in helping to free up large quantities of the radio spectrum for public use. Currently, Apple and others are petitioning the FCC to allow unlicensed access for high- speed, medium-distance data commu nications.

A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley, Cisler spent two years as a Peace Corps teacher in Togo and then three years as a search and rescue officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. Since 1987 he has run a conference on libraries and information on The WELL, a UNIX-based computer-conferencing system in Sausalito, California. He has written for Library Journal, Wired , Online, American Libraries, Online, and Whole Earth Review.