Our Libraries
May 29, 2001
Web site offers guide to communities
You live in Rolling Meadows. You work in Hoffman Estates. You shop at Woodfield. In fact, somehow you drive 12,000 miles a year all over the whole Daily Herald area and yet when you try to find information about government and schools and the offerings of park districts and the availability of service clubs and the whole range of community organizations in all of these areas, it’s really difficult. Even a telephone book is small and limited in the place where you live. How can I find a Yoga class? Where am I supposed to vote? Who is my representative in Springfield? What kind of senior housing is available in this area? This kind of information and more can be found on a special community resource designed just for people who live and work in the Chicago suburbs. It’s called NorthStarNet. The URL is:
http://www.northstarnet.org/
NorthStarNet is a user friendly, one-stop source for all kinds of information. Over 124 communities are represented. NorthStarNet is built and maintained by public libraries in our area. Staff at each participating library work with information providers in their communities such as park districts, school districts, city and village government, and service clubs. They aggregate information on a community-by-community basis. There is a search engine that enables the user to search across the 124 communities represented. It’s a powerful tool for finding out about the community where you live as well as those communities where you work and shop.
NorthStarNet also includes regional information. For example, there is a link to a nifty map of the interstate system designed by the Illinois Department of Transportation. It shows road conditions all around Illinois. Another useful community resource are Metra schedules. To get to both of these sources, choose “Regional Resources” on the NorthStarNet home page, followed by “Transportation.”
Sometimes people complain that the Internet is dehumanizing and is taking away the human connection that people who live in an area have with each other. You only need to look at a resource like NorthStarNet to see that the Internet has potential in many areas. NorthStarNet is living, breathing proof that the Internet can build community in our area, in our state, in our nation and in our world.
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Sarah Long's "Our Libraries" column in the Daily Herald is published the first Sunday of the month. The Daily Herald is Chicagoland's third largest daily newspaper, with a circulation of approximately 128,000. 
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