International Satellite Communications to Support and Supplement Web-Based Information Exchange

This chapter describes international collaborative programs to develop information exchange networks connecting the Pacific Island communities among themselves on the one hand and between them and the Pacific rim countries and the rest of the world on the other. It gives as an example the use of the PEACESAT (Pan-Pacific Education and Communications Experiments by Satellite) satellite network to “talk to” heads of libraries of several Pacific Islands to obtain quick approval of a plan for an Asia-Pacific regional development information network, before submitting the plan document to funding agencies/sponsors.1