February 23, 1998 Press Release from the White House:
        Helping Schools End Social Promotions

Federal Gov't to Spend $50-Million on Digital Libraries

The U.S. government plans to spend $50 million over four or five years as part of its new Digital Library 2 project. The original Digital Library project started in 1994 with about half that amount of funding. The leader of the University of Illinois' digital library project notes that online technology is developing so rapidly, that proposals will have to "sound very grand and flaky" in order not to become obsolete before the five years is up. Federal agencies involved in the Digital Library 2 project include the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Library of Congress, NASA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Library of Medicine. (Chronicle of Higher Education 27 Feb 98)

Working to Solve the Information Gap

An increasing number of publications have been pointing out the growing disparity between the information-rich and information-poor. A good example is the new book by Fred T. Hofstetter ("Internet Literacy"), a guide to using the Internet; Hofstetter says: "Because the Net cannot see racial differences, age, sex, or physical handicaps, it doesn't discriminate. Except, perhaps, against the unconnected, because in an information society, to be cut off from the Internet is to be disenfranchised." ("Internet Literacy," Irwin McGraw-Hill)