The World Wide Web (WWW) is a powerful technology that allows files located on different computers around the world to be electronically linked to one another so that they appear to be all in one place. This has the virtue of giving organization and coherence to files that may in fact exist separately on computers thousands of miles apart. Web technology also saves users the tedious process of having to log in and log out of multiple computers in order to see or retrieve files related in subject matter but residing at different physical locations.

In May CCSI was invited to join the WWW site Greg Cole and Natasha Bulashova have established called "Friends and Partners" (F&P). We accepted this invitation enthusiastically. Friends and Partners is one of the best on-going collections of Internet-based information related to civil society issues in the NIS (new indepedent states). We had profiled F&P in the April 1994 issue of "Civil Society . . . East and West."

Over the summer, with the assistance of University of Washington graduate students Deon Fackler and Colleen Halley, CCSI designed the "home page" for our section of Friends and Partners, then formatted a large number of documents for upload to it. Using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) we coded literally hundreds of documents--including all sections of our book "Civil Society: USA" and all back issues of this newsletter. As a result, any Internet user anywhere in the world can now access these materials just by connecting to Friends and Partners and moving the cursor to our line on the F&P home page. Pressing takes one straight to CCSI�s home page (see right).

We are excited by the results and invite you to log on and have a look for yourself. The box below explains how. If you do visit our F&P site, please send us any comments or criticisms. We are eager to make this material as useful and user friendly as possible.

For more information or to order a subscription, see our publications page.

Center for Civil Society International [email protected]