| Center for Civil Society International [email protected] |  |
GlasNet is a non-profit telecommunications network created in 1991 to serve the emerging non-governmental sector in the former Soviet Union. It promotes inexpensive information exchange among journalists, scientists, educators, environmentalists, and others. GlasNet is a member of the world-wide Association for Progressive Communications (APC), founded in 1990 to help coordinate "the global computer network linking peace, environmental, health and public interest communities." APC's host network in the US is the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), which comprises several "subnetworks" such as PeaceNet and EcoNet.
GlasNet uses host computers in Moscow and Kiev and local dial-up numbers in over 30 other NIS cities, from Minsk to Odessa to Blagoveshensk. Users without local dial-up must call Moscow or Kiev to log on to their account. The Moscow and Kiev hosts have the capacity for "live" Internet connection--e.g., access to gopher, lynx, telnet, and ftp services. GlasNet also offers a number of databases to its users, including the Library of Congress and UC-Berekley card catalogs and the Environmental Defense Fund�s directory of worldwide environmental researchers.
Americans can sponsor accounts for friends and colleagues in the NIS by making dolllar payments to IGC. (All payments in the NIS are in local currency.) Address inquiries to GlasNet/USA.
In addition to electronic mail and other services, GlasNet users can participate in APC conferences, of which there are hundreds. A conference is like an electronic bulletin board: anyone can post a message, called a "topic." Topics are numbered and listed in chronological order. Conference readers may create their own topics, or respond to ones already posted. The number of responses generated by a particular topic is listed next to the topic heading. Readers may also respond only to the person who posted a topic, rather than to the conference.
Conferences are listed on-line, and a printed guide is available from IGC for $5.00. More than ten conferences deal specifically with the former USSR; several of them are described below.
"Reg.ussr" was created in March 1990 and contains news and opinions about current events in the region. New items appear several times a week; some are written by NIS citizens. A November 20th posting described recent activity of Russian fascist organizations, including their involvement in the labor movement. Recent announcements included job openings in southern Russia (Center for Citizen Initiatives) and Kyrgyzstan (United Nations Volunteers), and an upcoming "International Conference on Teaching the History of the Second World War in Higher Education Institutions," to be held in St. Petersburg in 1995. (The facilitator for this conference can be reached at [email protected].)
"Env.siberia" was established in August 1992 to address "issues relating to the Siberian environment and indigenous people." (The facilitator's address is [email protected].) This conference averages one new posting per week. In October 1994 the Siberian Forests Protection Project wrote about threats to biodiverisity in the Russian Far East and urged conference participants to appeal to Russian President Yeltsin and Primorskii Krai Governor Nazdratenko on behalf of the Amur tiger, which is near extinction. A Russian scientist from Moscow�s Institute of Global Climate and Ecology used this conference to seek participants for a 1995 research expedition to Novaya Zemlya. Other recent postings include a World Wildlife Federation statement on the oil spill near Usinsk in northern Russia. The conferences "env.ukraine" and "env.centasia" are not very active, but "env.cis," which covers environmental issues throughout Eurasia, has weekly postings.
The Network of East-West Women (NEWW) set up a conference in March 1994 ("women.east-wes") as a forum to discuss gender issues in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. Postings are weekly, and range from a description of a women's arts festival in St. Petersburg to a graduate student's request for information on development projects for women. Information about CEE/NIS speakers at local NEWW meetings also appears. (The facilitator�s address is [email protected].)
ISAR posts selected items from its journal, "Surviving Together: A Quarterly on Grassroots Cooperation in Eurasia", on the conference "isar.journal." Articles focus on development, the environment, economics, women, and civil society. (ISAR�s email address: [email protected])
Private conferences can also be set up to serve a specific group of users. For example, an organization with representatives in the US, Russia, and Kazakhstan can use a private conference to post ideas and questions and inform one another of each other's activities.
A detailed brochure describing GlasNet is available at the Friends and Partners World Wide Web site. The URL is: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/friends/telecomm/glasnet.html. Look at the "More Information Resources" or "Telecommunications" pages.
For more information or to order a subscription, see our publications page.
The URL for this page is: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~ccsi/nettalk/94-12/glasnet.html
Last updated: March 29 1996
|
| Center for Civil Society International [email protected] | |