Community technology centres: Builders of social capital?

Telecentres have been provided in a number of Australian communities by federal, state and local government in partnership with universities, industry and other funding agencies (Share, 1997). Telecentres provide an environment where community informatics (CI) activities can be delivered to communities. This paper discusses some of the issues involved in commnunity technology centre (CTC) management in relation to delivering local conununity benefit. Social capital has been proposed as a prerequisite for commnunity development, and CTCs provide an environment which facilitates the development of social capital. This paper describes the essential and critical roles that the coordinators play in the development of social capital.