This is how my good friend Dale Johnson, at the University of Michigan, sees it all:
"In America, about 2/3 of those who have a college education have a computer with web or email access; and the proportion of people without a degree is growing fast. The fastest growing groups of new users has recently been retirees (who have the time to follow interests they have always wondered about). Most recently, minority groups (including African-Americans and Native-Americans) have been fast-growing segments, at least partly because web sites and other mechanisms such as email make it easy to form "communities" of people who are physically far apart.
"People who are interested in Space Physics, for instance, will often make web sites about that they are doing. They will include pointers to sites of people that they communicate with, other Space Physicists, and so will those people. In this way you get a lot of people with similar interests pointing to each other, and by following the links from one site you will tend to find related sites.
"This is not limited to academics or scientists. My wife belongs to a group with several hundred people who are all enthusiasts of Bernina sewing machines; they trade information about tips for difficult tasks, where to find exotic or inexpensive sewing materials, and samples of their work.
"There are similar sites for Geneologists, Bicyclists, and aficionados of Early Music. Many government agencies now put their full set of forms, rules, and instructions on the web. There are an enormous number of stores on the web: the number of books sold over the web is beginning to get close to the number of books sold in stores. Many public library catalogs have their "card catalogs" on the web. Many news magazines (and other specialty magazines) have web sites."
Dale Johnson, Manager of Information Technology Support,
University of Michigan School of Information
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