Public access internet / Distant Belle

Today: Activist, musician, and writer jj skolnik; and John Saward, a writer based in Chicago.

Issue No. 152

Community Based Network
jj skolnik

Your Old Room
John Saward

Community Based Network

by jj skolnik

This story is part of The Lost Internet, a month-long series in which the members of Flaming Hydra revisit internet marvels of the past.

I got my first email address from the public library.

In 1992, with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Georgetown University, a “community-based computer network” called CapAccess went online. For a one-time fee of $25, you could sign up at the library and get an email address of your own, plus access to an assortment of local bulletin boards covering life in the DC area. CapAccess was also a portal to a number of other early internet worlds, including other local “freenets” similar to CapAccess, Usenet newsgroups, and Telnet, which could take you to any other server in the world, provided you knew the address.

My library account was a godsend, for a messed-up 13-year-old with a lot of problems who was a couple years deep into becoming obsessed with their local punk and indie rock scene. I could connect with other punks and DIY sorts through the local boards, Usenet, and mailing lists, of which I joined about 100. I shared a partially written mystery novel told from the perspective of the detective’s cat with a community of amateur mystery writers, who refused to believe that I was in junior high.