Represents current thinking, research, and practice in applying information and communications technologies to community needs. An introduction provides a broad overview of community informatics (CI) and suggests terminology. A section on background and issues discusses access, environment and sustainable development, and community development. Later sections present approaches to theoretically framing CI from sociological, political, and regional development perspectives, and present experiences in community networking from the US, Europe, and Africa. Also discussed are CI application areas, CI in developing countries, and CI in disadvantaged US and UK neighborhoods. A final section offers case studies. The editor is affiliated with the Technical University of British Columbia. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)