Newly arrived communities, seniors and people with disabilities have specific needs when it comes to accessing and using the web which has now become a necessary life skill. Government has a need to ensure that these communities are not excluded from active participation in society. This talk will cover the work that Vicnet does as a business unit of the State Library of Victoria (SLV), with special emphasis on the projects delivered to align with the State Government’s social inclusion policy agenda. These include projects that:

• emphasis community based ICT skills development, e.g.CALD Senior Surfers, Internet Training for People with a Disability
• increase access to internet for Victorians; and,
  
• Develop content for the web, e.g wikinorthia
• Support content creation for the non-English speaking web e,g MyLanguage

Brendan Fitzgerald is currently Manager of Vicnet which as the community based ICT business unit of the State Library of Victoria is responsible for delivering a number of significant digital inclusion programmes for the Victorian community. During his time at Vicnet he has overseen a number of projects aimed at increasing the communities’ capacity to use and have access to ICT. This has included projects such as the Libraries Online Project which connected all branch libraries in Victoria to the internet and developed the Gulliver Consortium for collaborative purchasing of digital resources. As well he has convened the award winning MyLanguage project www.mylanguage.gov.au. Brendan is very interested in the role that libraries in particular can play in developing social inclusive and positive communities.