October Meeting Explores GLBT Internet
by John Olski
Posted 10/22/03 The Monday, October 20 general meeting for Positive Voice featured three Internet resources for GLBT people in northeast
Wisconsin. The first resource was the Positive Voice web site, redeveloped over the summer. The second resource was "Cooler by the Lake," developed and maintained by Wisconsin librarians. The third, and most crucial GLBT resource was Appleton librarian Michael Nitz, Positive Voice webmaster and developer of the Gay & Lesbian section of Cooler By The Lake.
Michael used projection equipment to take 14 Positive Voice members and guests on a guided Internet tour at the Appleton Public Library. The new Positive Voice web site was fully launched at the beginning of September. The site was revamped for ease of navigation, to provide more space for local news and viewpoints, and to create a community forum for other local GLBT organizations.
Michael noted that the site has received 50 to 60 visits or "hits" in the past weeks, up from a 2002-2003 average of 30 visits per weeks. One PV board member in attendance added that a Google search for "positive voice" now places the organization at the top of its results list. A quick check reveals that the search engine Yahoo gives the same result. User-friendly changes to the Positive Voice web site include a reorganized GLBT resource list and an altered community calendar. New to the calendar are links to broadcast programming (TV, radio) available in NE Wisconsin; linked locator maps for events; and an auto-reminder feature that easily downloads event information to
desktop or palm pilot calendars. An archive has been added to the Positive Voice site, listing Positive Voice newsletters in PDF format and linking to other stories in the northeast Wisconsin media. The latter includes a recent Appleton Post-Crescent feature for National Coming Out Day. The Positive Voice web site continues to be hosted by Fox Cities Online (FOCOL), a non-profit corporation operated by the Appleton Public Library. FOCOL advertises that it provides "web hosting for over 40 non-profit organizations," the advantage of which is an excellent rate for the non-profits and an absence of pop-up advertising. Future additions
to the Positive Voice site could include personal web logs (blogs) and a message board for announcements and discussions. Another feature known as RSS (Really Simple Syndications) could inform subscribers of new content on the Positive Voice web site as it's posted. Cooler by the Lake is a reference resource maintained on a volunteer basis by Wisconsin librarians and highlighting Wisconsin-specific web sites.
Michael Nitz developed and maintains the Gay & Lesbian area of Cooler by the Lake, a task that prompted some quips about whether he has a social life. The resource is indeed vast, and Michael says his goal was to go beyond northeast Wisconsin and "provide easy access to the
best of gay-related information web sites on all topics of interest to gay people." A typical Cooler by the Lake topic area opens with a paragraph that, in theory, is updated monthly to provide information on recent links or news. The Wisconsin Trail Mix follows, listing local or regional web sites.
A left-hand menu provides a host of related topic areas for additional searches, an area that Michael has spent much time developing in the Gay & Lesbian section. The category of Biographies provides a good look at the amount of work that goes into compiling a reference resource. Michael says he had no idea, at the outset, that there were so many LGBT people.
A tour of LGBT Biographies begins with sub-categories such as Athletes or Authors. Within each category, people are listed alphabetically and each name is followed by several possible links. Clicking About or By will take a person to the NEWCat library catalog for northeast Wisconsin, showing all books (or other materials) available on a biographical subject, or that are by the person available in the libraries' collections that participate in the OWLS-Nicolet system.
GBRC and GLRC link to the Gale biographical and literature databases, which is available within the library and from home to anyone whose local library subscribes to the service. In northeast Wisconsin, that includes all member libraries of the OWLS & Nicolet library systems. PW links to personal web sites, while IW links to interesting web sites devoted to the LGBT person for whom one is searching. One of the restrictions on listing a good site, says Michael, is if the site contains porn advertising, such advertising can create conflicts with some libraries' Internet filtering software. The intent is to find useful, quality sites that most people would be comfortable using.
Michael uses a URL review tool every couple months to check for bad links. Problems are noted and left until the next URL review is performed. If the links are still dead, they are deleted at that time. Use of the Gay & Lesbian section of Cooler by the Lake has leaped dramatically in page views from less than a thousand hits per year at its inception to over three thousand hits per month to date. The section has been among the ten most popular for some time, and has more recently been exceeded in popularity only by the Food section, though Michael notes that Gay & Lesbian did see a couple of number-one
months earlier this year. Michael concluded his presentation by exploring other web sites of interest to Positive Voice members and guests. One of the more popular sites was The Commercial Closet, which bills itself as The World's Largest Collection of Gay Advertising. Developed by a non-profit educational and journalism organization, The Commercial Closet tracks depictions of GLBT people in advertising. The site lists positive, negative and vague portrayals of gay people by advertisers, and features TV commercials that can be viewed on line. Addendum: The October meeting for
Positive Voice opened and concluded with some discussion about developing a GLBT community center for northeast Wisconsin. Four Positive Voice board members had done some recent fact-finding on community centers in general, while three guests shared some of their experience in seeking a community center coalition among northeast Wisconsin organizations. Positive Voice has not made community center development an official part of its agenda, though the topic has received some attention. Look
for more dialog on the topic in November's Positive Voice newsletter and web site update. | 
