roundtable: FW: re: House and Senate email

roundtable: FW: re: House & Senate email

FW: re: House & Senate email

Karen Coyle (kec@stubbs.ucop.edu)
Thu, 10 Mar 94 10:19:34 PST 

Message-Id: <Chameleon.940310102349.kec@MONA.UCOP.EDU>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 10:19:34 PST
From: kec@stubbs.ucop.edu (Karen Coyle)
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: FW: re: House & Senate email

Forwarding from tbush@hr.house.gov (Ted Bush)
   at his request - I believe this was the list of the original posting.

Karen Coyle
University of California Library Automation
<kec@stubbs.ucop.edu>


MODERATOR'S NOTE:
I don't think this is the forum where the discussion happened, but I 
figured this was worth posting anyway.  As a side note, I can't speak 
to the House, but I met with staff members of the Senate Computing
Center and the Senate Rules Committee last summer to discuss networking 
options.  I found little of what Ted responds to in the appended note.  
In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at how knowledgable the Senate 
Computing Center was on the networking issues facing them and thought 
they were being addressed in an informed and level-headed manner.

For those interested, the Senate recently brought up a Gopher server
(gopher.senate.gov), although it is lacking data at this point.

Craig A. Summerhill
<craig@cni.org>

---------------Original Message---------------

Hi, I'm writing you directly 'cause the House internet access is still
fragmented; we can read selected groups, but can' respond.

My boss, Representative Sam Coppersmith (D, first district of AZ), has
set up the first Gopher on the Hill with assistance from ASU.  We
receive email from our constituents, and they receive an autoresponse.
We are not yet set up to respond w/real responses via email.

Some of the rather cynical suggestions as to why the Hill is not set 
up for email are accurate, but annoying, nonetheless.  The volume of
SnailMail and faxmail the average Congressional office receives is
immense, mindboggling, huge, and we are trying to deal with it with
staffing levels being cut from under us by other cynics claiming
Congress spends too much on itself.  HA.

re: the accessibility of the technology on Capitol Hill, some of these
offices here have barely graduated from abacus'.  You'd be amazed at
some of the dinosaurs still on the Hill.  Upgrading our systems comes
from our office expense accounts.  My boss is relatively young and no
technophobe, so we've established a WAN, upgraded our systems, bought
the software, and are serving as guinea pigs for many of the
"innovations" being brought to the Hill.  Our Internet access is so
limited, due to various safety concerns, that it feels as if we're using
a moped on the Information Highway, and my access is STILL far greater
than 99% of the Hill's.

We're not dodging our constituents.  We're swamped and limited by budget
and time constraints.  But we're getting there.

-- Ted Bush
      tbush@hr.house.gov


I'd appreciate your forwarding this into the group from whence came the
House & Senate E-mail?  debate.  My profuse thanks.

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