reviews, news and MIDI tips. Membership in Music Net costs $75/yr. (Music Net, PO Box 274, Beekman, NY 12570). PAN offers a broad range of services to , performers, and generally to the entertainment world. Databases include European Club Database, College Radio Station list, and Studio locations (PAN, PO Box 162, Skipack, PA 19474). PAN charges $125 I yr. Synth-Net is an online conference aimed at recording professionals. Regular users include Herbie Hancock, Joe Walsh, and Jeff Lorber. Membership fees are $175/yr. (Synth-Net, 320 West 37th St., New York, NY 10018). (From Bulletin Board Systems, October, 1986) PRESBYTERIAN ONLINE NETWORK The Presbyterian Church has began to use Prebynet, a nonhierarchical, multidirectional, inclusive telephone-computer network In April of 1986 up to 500 members and agencies of the Presbyterian Church and a number of ecumenical partners began to use Presbynet, a "nonhierarchical, multidirectional, inclusive telephone-computer network." Each of the 3.1 million member church's 181 presbyteries, 20 synods, and special interest groups are able to claim a subsidizep, pre-paid account on the system. Each user receives the same amount of free, prepaid computer time each month, two hours of prime time or three hours of non-prime time. To avoid having first-time users expend all of their free time learning the system, each user recives five hours of prime-time free of charge or seven hours non-prime time during the first month on the system. Three toll-free phone lines will enable people in the church to phone a 24-hour number for technical assistance, to dial the central computer without phone toll charges if they live outside the areas covered by the network's own low-rate access phone lines, and to find out what is happening on the system. The agency contracted with Network Technologies In.~rnational (NTI), based in Ann Arbor, Michigan to provide the computer, the Page 36 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 phone linkages, and technical assistance. The agency also contracted with The Networking Institute for assistance in developing their use of the system. For More Information: Presbyterian Church, The Support Agency, Communications Unit, Room. 1948, Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Drive, · · New York, NY 10115, 212-870-2402. PEACENET AN ONLINE COMPUTER COMMUNICATION SYSTEM PeaceNet, an online computer communication network supports activities of groups working on world peace issues with electronic mailing, conferences, and databases PeaceNet is a computer-based communication system helping the peace movement throughout the world communicate and cooperate more effectively. It is owned, operated, and.managed by four nonprofit national peace organizations with a combined membership of over 10,000: Ark Communications Institute, Center for Innovative Diplomacy, Community Data Processing, and Foundation for Arts of Peace. A council consisting of a representative from each organization is responsible for PeaceNet operations. Peacenet is used by groups such as the American Peace Test, Beyond War, Coalition for a New Foreign Policy, Internews, National Freeze, North American Congress on Latin America, Nuclear Times, and Parliamentarians Global Action. It has been used by a dozen Soviet-American sister cities to organize a meeting in Colorado and to work together afterwards. Three researchers from California, New York, and Colorado have used PeaceNet's conferences to write a paper on "alternative security" round-robin style, even while one researcher was traveling through Europe. Organizers of the Great Peace March used PeaceNet to coordinate their nationwide 3235 mile walk. When PeaceNet's databases are ready, organizers throughout the country will be able to access lists of peace-related organizations, speakers, funders, and research. A coalition of peace-minded local officials plans to create a
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz