At the behest of Mr. Tim Smith of the US Information Agency, I visited the new National Legislature Building on Thursday to meet with their information technology people. 

The Director of their computer and networking area was out of town, so I spent an hour or so with the Assistant Director, Mr. Lawal Usman.  He showed me around the building and explained that the contractors that built the new Legislative Building ran category five copper wire throughout, in anticipation of a major network installation.  However, the networking group has made no progress since that point.  So while there are hundreds of jacks in the walls, there are no devices connected and they have yet to obtain common network components like servers and hubs. 

I visited Mr. Usman's office.  He had an older computer, probably a late 486 or early Pentium with a broken printer and a decrepit scanner attached.  There was neither a network card nor network cables.  Mr. Usman graduated with a Master's in computer science from a US university in 1985 (about the start of the PC revolution) and has had little formal training since then. 

When pressed for his plans on networking the building, his answers were oblique and unconvincing.  He clearly sees the need for a network server and network concentrators and wires, but had a hard time distinguishing between the network server and network services. 

He explained to me that he is having a difficult time finding people with skills, and that they desperately need training at the National Legislature and coaching to help them set goals and make decisions. 

After a brief tour of the building led by Mr. Usman, we wandered next door to the Congressional Library building.  The Main Librarian was also out of town, but I met with two Assistant Librarians who were able to show me around the physical plant.  I saw probably half a dozen functioning personal computers, but they were all stand-alone computers -- some hosting CD ROM databases and some looking like they had already fallen into disrepair. 

There was wiring in the walls and cable pathways defined through all the rooms, so it's clear that networking is expected in the library, yet the Assistant Librarians made it clear that they also lack skilled technicians and a vision of what they hope to accomplish.  The library has no concrete plans for connecting to the Internet, although the staff I spoke to surely like the idea and expect that it will happen at some point.