JAN: With traditional institutions fading away....we are seeing ....perhaps belatedly.....interest in understanding the idea of community. The notion of "communities of Interest" facilitated by global connections is growing. Certainly the ADEC Consortium is built on this notion....that collaboration..... shared work tools.....and an international "place" to work together can increase creativity...responsibility .... productivity and quality outcomes. Collaboration with trust can reduce constraints of distance and institutional barriers. Trust norms that respect context, culture, difference of perspective combined with vision and interoperable working mechanisms are essential. For those of you beginning to work collaboratively - in consortia - there must be a basis for building your community. A colleague of mine at the University of Texas....who has been working on the Austin Learning Academy - a whole community approach to working with young people in an inner city environment - is discovering/re-discovering how physical place and new cooperative learning technology can be combined to reach kids unreached by the traditional school system. He wrote me last week..... "technology needs to be an overlay for existing social networks and social interaction - it must be tied to place'." Here place takes on a new meaning. The technology must take into account the dynamic aspects of social interaction. Individuals participate in a team project by adding value to a piece of evolving work. He says to me, of course, this bit of radical common sense is contrary to our notion of individual ownership of property, including scholarship and intellectual property. What the heck.....these objections are minor obstacles. By the way, we've completed the buffalo soldier web site. You can get to it from the ALA homepage....... Kaye......he's been using a historical approach - engaging so called throw away the kids in learning to learn via the history of the African American buffalo soldiers. Connections old and new, collaborations old and new, these will invent our future.