Saturday March 21, 1998
Textor Hall, Ithaca College

Keynote Speakers

Steve Cisler has over 23 years experience working in libraries, with information technology, and in building community computer networks.

Before his current career he served two years in the Peace Corps in Togo as a teacher of English, and three years in Coast Guard search and rescue operations in the Caribbean. He worked in public libraries for 14 years before being hired by Apple Computer Corporation in 1988.

He worked in the Apple Research Laboratories as a Senior Scientist from May, 1988, until October, 1997, managing a grant program called Apple Library of Tomorrow and ran the Network Outreach group where World Wide Web research and wireless spectrum allocation work was being carried out. He has organized two international conferences on community computer networks in 1994 and 1995 and has supported other such efforts.

The Apple Library of Tomorrow program made grants to many types of libraries and some museums. The program provided equipment and software for innovative research and demonstration projects in all types of libraries. From 1993 to 1996 they focused on community networks where libraries have played a crucial role in the formation of local information infrastructure. They have helped to sponsor conferences in community networking since 1993, including Ties That Bind in 1994 and 1995, and the recent conference on Community Networks in Taos, New Mexico, in May 1996.

Within the Advanced Technology Group he worked on new information retrieval and communications research and has been involved in national information policy issues such as the NREN and access issues on the Internet. While at Apple he worked on a proposal to petition the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to free up 300 Mhz of spectrum for public, no-license use.

Apple, faced with continuing losses, dissolved the Advanced Technology Group, closed the library, and ended the Apple Library of Tomorrow program in October of 1997.

He is currently involved in writing, speaking, and traveling in connection with his interests in community networks, libraries, Internet access issues in rural areas and developing countries. Steve is internationally recognized as an advocate of community networking projects, and has a special passion for projects involving indigenous languages and other languages that are largely ignored by the software industry.

He is a frequent speaker on Internet issues and has lectured in many states as well as Thailand, Cuba, Turkey, Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, United Kingdom, and Chile. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Internet Society and writes for publications such as Online, American Libraries, Library Journal, Whole Earth Review, Big World, and Wired. On The WELL, a computer conferencing system in California, he runs a conference on information technology issues.

In 1993 he received the Library and Information Technology Association/Gaylord award for achievement in library and information technology. In 1996 he won a Silver Award from the U.S. national Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) for sustained contributions to libraries and information services at the national level.

Martin A. Luster, New York State Assemblyman, 125th Assembly District (Tompkins County, City of Cortland, Town of Cortlandville)

Martin A. Luster won this Assembly seat in 1988, marking the first time in 75 years that a Democrat had represented the 125th Assembly District (Tompkins and Tioga counties, prior to the 1992 re-apportionment). Mr. Luster has been re-elected in each successive election.

A full-time legislator, Assemblyman Luster serves on the committees on Higher Education, Agriculture, Aging, Energy, and Health. In 1997, Luster was appointed as the first Chair of the Committee on Libraries and Education Technology. He is an active member of the Commission on Rural Resources, where he has chaired workshops on the structure, functions and financing of county government, rural infrastructure and comprehensive planning.

Since 1995, Mr. Luster has served as Chair of the Legislative Commission on Government Administration. Under Luster's direction, the commission has published a major report entitled "Re-inventing Budgeting in New York," widely hailed for its incisiveness and scholarship.

Recognizing the increasing and unfair burden of school property taxes, Luster is leading the effort to change the way in which public schools are financed. He is sponsoring landmark legislation to shift the financing of education from the property tax to the state broad-based taxes and has addressed many taxpayer and education groups regarding this issue in various regions of the state.

Mr. Luster has sponsored many bills in his eight years in the Assembly, 94 of which have been signed into law. The highlights of these are the Rural Education Research Act, which focuses attention on the needs of students in rural schools and the Tech-Prep Bill, which establishes programs of worker preparation for youth at risk. Mr. Luster's Practitioner Placement Law is intended to encourage primary care physicians to establish practices in under-served areas. His efforts were responsible for a $2 million appropriation to support Electronic Doorway Library services throughout New York.

Before his election to the Assembly, Mr. Luster devoted substantial time to community service. He served as President of the Tompkins County Economic Opportunity Corporation and on the Board of Directors of the Alpha House Drug Rehabilitation Facility, Cayuga Nature Center, and the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts.

Luster was one of the founders and board members of Trumansburg Seniors, Inc., sponsor and builder of housing for the elderly in Trumansburg. He served as a member of the Tompkins County Cable TV Commission and the Advisory Committee for Representation of the Indigent.

Mr. Luster began public service when, in 1983, he was elected Ulysses Town Supervisor, the first Democrat in over 50 years to hold that position. He was re-elected in 1985 and narrowly lost his first bid for the Assembly in 1986.

Mr. Luster has been recognized by, among others, the following organizations: the Finger Lakes Group of the Sierra Club, NYS Tuition Assistance Program, Zero Adolescent Pregnancy Program of Cortland County, the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Tompkins County Task Force for Battered Women and Child Sexual Abuse Project, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the A.C.E. Program (Ithaca City School District), Channel 7 as Newsmaker of the Year for 1989, and the American Cancer Society. In 1996, the United University Professions honored Mr. Luster with the coveted Friend of SUNY Award for his strong advocacy for the State University. Luster was named a "Advocate of the Year" by the New York Library Association in 1996 and was the recipient of the Ruth Polson Public Service Award presented by the Finger Lakes Library System.

Mr. Luster and his wife, Barbara, live in Trumansburg. They have two children and one grandchild.

Track Speakers

Stuart M. Basefsky is an Information Specialist and Instructor at Cornell's School of Industrial & Labor Relations. He is a recognized expert on government information policy about which he has written and spoken. As a government documents specialist, working closely with the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University, and now as a workplace information specialist at Cornell, he is a librarian with considerable perspective. He is also a former secondary school teacher. In addition, he served for three years on the Site Based Decision Making Council for Boynton Middle School. He is the current President of the Ithaca Public Education Initiative.

Judy Boggess, Policy Analyst, Tompkins County

Bill Demo, Tompkins Cortland Community College

Charles Evans, Chair, Electronic Future Committee, Tompkins County Board of Representatives

Linda S. Folley, Ph.D, is Vice President, Advanced Projects, at Spider Graphics Corporation . She has wide experience in computer application development, statistical applications, database development, and internet applications.

Tom Hallisey, Cayuga Medical Center

Tom Hanna is Vice President of LifeNET, Inc., a Web-based enterprise. Tom is also a consultant on marketing and technology at Cornell University's Family Life Development Center, where he specializes on Internet marketing of human services. He has designed systems for using the Internet to achieve social marketing goals since 1986. He recently served on the City of Ithaca's Common Council where he was vice-chair of the Planning and Economic Development Committee. He currently serves on the Retention and Development Committee of the Ithaca Downtown Partnership, and is a member of the Finger Lakes Entrepreneur's Forum.

Marjorie W. Hodges is Director of Cornell's Computer Policy and Law Program , a frequent speaker and a recognized national authority in this field. In December, 1997, she was a participant in The Internet Online Summit: Focus on Children in Washington, DC, sponsored by the White House. Her most recent publication is "The First Amendment in Cyberspace" for CAUSE/EFFECT magazine (Fall 1997).

S. Keshav, Department of Computer Science, Cornell University

Ari Kissiloff is founder and a co-owner of Public Communications, Inc., one of Ithaca's earliest Web design firms and a specialist in electronic media. Ari also teaches computer-related courses in the Corporate Communications department at Ithaca College.

Peter Leonard Krebs is Chairman of the Dutch Computer Association and is responsible for several Web sites, helped develop IBM's Olympics '96 Web site, and is working on a comprehensive Europe Online site for travelers. He is a Cornell University student.

Gion-Men Kruegel, CEO and Design Director of ECLAT New York Inc., a Graphic Design and Corporate Identity Design Bureau in Ithaca NY. Gion-Men Kruegel's firm's current clients include: Blue Ridge, Unigard, Osec, Eurex, Mettler-Toledo, Kionix, Cornell's Johnson School of Management, Phoenix Mecano and Winterthur International. At earlier stages of his career, he did major multimedia projects for many clients, including German Railways, and Mecedes Benz. Kruegel is an experienced designer and developer of Web sites, CD-ROM and Video productions as well as Trade Exhibits, Information Kiosks, signage systems and transportation communication systems.

Cynthia LaPier, Ithaca City School District

John Levine writes, lectures, and consults on the Internet and related computer topics. He has written or co-authored many books including the best-selling Internet for Dummies, with over two million copies of Internet for Dummies and related titles in print. He speaks to many trade and general groups; recent talks have been at the Smithsonian Institution and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. In his spare time he runs an Internet network in his back bedroom and is the sewer commissioner in Trumansburg.

Jonathon D. Levy is Associate Director of Distance Learning at Cornell University, where in 1991 he pioneered the integration of video-teleconferencing in distance learning graduate programs. Levy founded and chairs the Ivy League's distance learning consortium and has assisted universities in the U.S., Western and Central Europe, and Latin America in establishing their own distance learning programs.

A Cornell assistant dean since 1980, he has designed classrooms and amphitheaters specifically for distance learning, and serves as a distance learning and design consultant for a number of organizations. Recently Levy received an award for distance learning design from TeleCom and the United States Distance Learning Association. He has presented papers and talks on a variety of distance learning themes at national and international conferences including the Academy of Management, TeleCon, SUNY-CIT, USDLA, and the Picturetel Users Group, of which he is a charter member and director.

Levy has lived in Ithaca since 1961. He has served as Ithaca Editor for the Syracuse Post-Standard, Executive Vice President of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of the American Foundation for the Science of Creative Intelligence where he taught the Transcendental Meditation program, owner of his own business, "Video Records," and has held positions at the Graduate School of Management, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and the Office of Distance Learning, all at Cornell University.

Adam Perl, Proprietor, Pastimes, a specialty shop retailing in antiques and collectibles. Adam has lived in Ithaca since 1957 and is a graduate of Cornell University. He founded Pastimes in 1979 in the Dewitt Bldg in downtown Ithaca and has remained there for over 19 years. In 1996 Pastimes entered the world of cyberspace with a Web page that featured an electronic request form. Since that time over 2000 requests have come in. In 1998 Pastimes began selling through eBay, an on-line auction service. Adam is a past president of the Tompkins County Antique Dealers association, a member of the Russian Children's Choir Committee, a singer with the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble and the proud father of three wonderful children.

Jim Siefker

Jim Spitznagel, who owned and managed Jim's Records in Pittsburgh for eighteen years and held the position of Museum Shop Manager at The Andy Warhol Museum for two years, relocated to Ithaca, New York in 1995. Spitznagel now owns two home-based businesses, Jim's Ithaca Music Shop (J.I.M.S.), which has been operating since June of '95, and Level Green Recording Company which was started in February 1997. J.I.M.S. is a mail order company which does business completely over the Internet and Level Green Recording Company uses the Internet as an additional marketing tool for its compact disc releases.

Michael Turback is an Internet Retailer and Hospitality Consultant. He operates The Made in New York Store at www.newyorkfirst.com , an on-line "Department Store", the only store whose every item is produced or manufactured exclusively in New York. The site has received an "Ultra-Cool Shopping Site" designation from www.coolshopping.com . A former restaurateur, he now consults for independent restaurants with Stoneheads Consulting Group. www.stoneheads.com offers a free on-line course in "Database Marketing" as an introduction to services which include concept development, database marketing, menu/ winelist rehab, merchandising, public relations, site selection, and Web page creation.

Anna Waldron is a 1993 graduate of Ithaca College with a B.A. in English & Education. She has worked as a CD-ROM developer and has taught various subjects at the high school level. Anna is currently the Enrichment teacher at Lansing High School, where she is an active member of the District Technology Committee. She is also pursuing a Master of Library Science Degree at Syracuse University.

Linda Wyatt has three children, and has homeschooled "officially" for 6 years. She has been on the internet for 4 years, and use it every day for things related to homeschooling. She is very active in some online homeschooling forums, and spend a fair amount of time helping people to understand what homeschooling is and how to find the information they need. Other than that, Linda spends many hours a month doing volunteer work of various kinds, while educating herself along with her family.

Workshop Trainers

Brenda Lapp, Information Technology Engineer, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University

Judy Boggess, Policy Analyst, Tompkins County, and mother of a 6th grader (see bio above).

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