Whenever we observe a problem which affects people, we make a choice. We can either attempt to assist those who are affected, or we can leave them to solve it for themselves.

In making this decision, we either cast our lot with those having the problem, or in effect assist those persons or forces causing it. We are never without the responsibility to assist anyone we can.

For more than a year now, we have been troubled by a problem which affects all who reside on the Delmarva Peninsula, and we have never publicly addressed it, attempting rather to affect it in more direct and private ways.

But our patience is at an end, frankly, and we cannot help but conclude the problem is not by accident but by design, and that those responsible for it should be called to task for their failure to perform their duties to the people of this region.

We point an accusing finger at THE STATE OF MARYLAND, THE MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, and the ENOCH PRATT FREE LIBRARY in Baltimore. In particular, we ask to stand and explain themselves those persons who are responsible for the delivery of internet services to other parts of the state, and those responsible for the SAILOR PROJECT.

According to your own published reports, your intentions have been for over two years now to provide dial-up access to the internet via county libraries. We are certain that is indeed your intention, and that you have made some effort to do so.

But often in life, our efforts are thwarted by poor decisions, and when those decisions set us on a course that is incorrect, we often thwart ourselves. That is what we believe you have done, you have been thwarted, and you have done it to yourselves.

That would be fine, and were it only affecting you and your friends and families, we would happily leave you in your unhappy state of thwart, we have enough other things to worry about. But we cannot, because your failure to accomplish what you set out to do has affected people we care deeply about.

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way," is an apt turn of phrase for public matters. We expect those who run our public agencies to either lead us in the right direction, follow others who have found success, or at least, to not impede progress.

We should neither expect nor tolerate power struggles in our public agencies, for such struggles reveal a greater concern for the careers and well-being of the servant rather than of the served.

That is what we believe has happened in the SAILOR PROJECT, and the actions of persons representing that agency in recent months make it even more evident. It is even hard to avoid the conclusion that darker, more sinister purposes lie behind what we must conclude now simply to be incompetence.

For over two years now, The Library Services Branch of the Maryland State Department of Education has been announcing plans, always around the corner, to provide internet access to libraries and school media centers. "It's coming ! Just hold on !" they would say again and again to shore residents who were anxiously waiting for a chance to catch up with the metro areas.

In this promise was a solution desperately needed by local county libraries, who have never, in the history of shore libraries, had to play catch-up with anyone. They are accustomed to being the leaders, and we are accustomed to that, as well.

Unfulfilled promises have a way of becoming threats. Not intentional, but that matters little. When delays in their service delivery went from months to years, local libraries began looking for other access. But the State of Maryland funds much of what goes on in libraries today, and the state had its eye on that plum.

They got desperate, we believe. And in their desperation, they began to deliver the most minimal service to remote areas, and sent cadres of people out in the field to promote it.

These people, at least, were effective. They rounded up every media specialist in every school, everyone who had ever delivered a book to anyone, sat them down and proudly announced, "THIS IS THE INTERNET ! "Only, it wasn't.

Well, it was and it wasn't. It was an internet connection, but it wasn't the wonderful point and click kind of access you should be using to read this. It was a cumbersome, text-oriented, menu driven system which was heavy on the input side and light on the output. It was, and is, (if you can find it working anywhere), outmoded, out-dated, and out of the question.

Were they doing the best they could do ? Perhaps. But what they lacked in technical skill and delivery, they more than made up for in personnel, and they managed to show that doggie of a system to literally thousands of people.

Think about that, if you will. These people have heard of this great technology, they have read about it, and seen it on tv. Finally, it comes into their lives from what should be a reliable source.

And it stinks. If they can find anything at all, it takes them forever. What they do find is generally endless lists of other things they can find, which lead to other endless lists and so on, and so on. They scratch their heads and wonder what the excitement is all about, and some conclude that it must be them. Some of them even fall into an "Emperor's new clothes" psychology, and actively promote a system which they know in their hearts is flawed.

There is not a single picture. Not a sound. Neither butterfly, nor bee, not even a picture of a duck. But "This is the future !" they are told, and they have no real choice but to believe it.

Longtime readers of the Journal will recall a similar situation some months ago, when Delmarva Online first went up with a BBS system, and its users were similarly misled. We made the observation then that it is not a criminal offense to cause confusion, but that it tends to accomplish little.

But confusion among those who are supposed to guide our schools and our children into the future cannot be tolerated, and we cannot allow those who are perpetrating this fraud upon the people of Maryland to continue without making every effort to correct the impression among many librarians around the region that the internet is of no use to them.

We have done so by acting upon the intentions of the owners of ICNet, and have gone into schools and libraries whenever we could, and literally begged them to use and to enjoy free PPP accounts and thereby see what was really going on. The moment they saw, they knew it was something wholly different from what they had been lead to believe.

What prompts us now, finally, to describe these circumstances here, is that we discovered in doing so something even more troubling: that questions had been raised by state employees about the intentions of internet service providers who were giving free access to libraries and to schools. "Watch out", they were told. "They will give you free access and then turn around and charge you for it. It will cost thousands of dollars when they do."

It is at that point we cross over from simple misunderstanding to deception, for nothing could be further from the truth, and to assume that the intentions of others are self-serving is to reveal the true nature of one's own. Shame on you.

There is a happy ending, though. We are fortunate to have dedicated professionals running our libraries and our schools on the shore, and while all of them are still young at heart, none of them were born yesterday. We have had no trouble explaining our intentions to them, nor have we encountered anything but complete cooperation and enthusiasm.

ICNet provides this access to libraries and to schools because they believe it is long overdue, and that this technology is critical to the economic future of this region.

That is what ICNet is in business to do, and it is a business taken seriously. The marketplace always keeps business accountable for its performance. This is not the first time we have wished the same was true for our state agencies.