The State of Missouri is actively addressing the year 2000 dilemma, which it considers a very serious, thought not necessarily catastrophic issue. Although the Missouri is a low tax state, ranking 42nd in terms of tax rates, the state legislature has appropriated approximately $57 million to the project, a significant amount relative to the state budget. The Office of Information Technology is strategically examining procedures and processes to determine how much of the work should be handled by staff, and how much will need to be contracted to other parties so that the transition into 21^st century dating can be as seamless as possible. Some operations are more date critical than others -- licenses, corporate registrations, legal and correctional data -- and will be assigned higher priority than other operations. Systems which are less date sensitive may retroactively dated, e.g., set to 1990, and continue to function as designed until a permanent solution can be worked out and installed.

Beyond computer operations, Year 2000 problems may afflict other logic chip based systems. These include chips in automobiles, HVAC and environmental controls in structures. Estimates indicate that some 2.5 billion chips exist, four percent, or 100,000,000 of which may be based on date logic functions. If only two percent of these chips fail because of Year 2000 issues, approximately two million systems will be impaired. The problem with these chips is no one knows exactly where they are, what they're controlling, and whether they're in service.

A second technological development supported both by state officials and legislation is the recognition of digital signatures. Recently the legislature passed a bill attributing the same legal status to certified digital signatures as to those personally signed by pen and ink. The signature system works through Public Key Encryption, a system that provides an encoding program at the document's origin, and a corresponding decoding program at the destination. A third party, in this case, the State of Missouri verifies the signature with a specimen on file. Since digitized documents will be legally recognized, the system will facilitate business and private transactions, and is intended for public use and good. It should be entirely operational within 24 months.

Because technology changes so rapidly, the state and indeed every user is encountering relatively the same major challenges. Equipment, hardware, and physical accessories have come down in price. If the state were to lose its technological resources all at once, the hardware could be replaced for around $25 million. The cost to replace the data however, because of the personnel costs for research, analysis, and re-entry would likely exceed one billion dollars. In 1971, one gigabyte of data storage capability would have cost $600,000. Today multi-gigabyte hard drives can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. People costs have gone up dramatically over the years. Programmers, analysts, operators and people in skilled positions command considerable salaries, and the cost of acquiring and maintaining sophisticated skills has similarly increased.

The nature of technology itself has changed. It often seems that instead of finding technology that can solve a problem or problems, end users are challenged to take a machine and find a problem it can solve. Research and development are oriented toward faster, more capable machines and programs, evolving storage media and memory, developments that were inconceivable only a few years ago. Because of this continuing improvement and innovation, it is becoming more difficult to tailor a system to specific needs, and thus under-using technological capacity is as real as having machines that are not capable of meeting their intended use. For example, Missouri has one of the top rated web sites in national surveys, but it is oriented much more heavily toward public relations and tourism than it is to business development, information access, and document retrieval. This is not to say that softer subjects aren't valuable. It merely points out that the web site has the capacity to do much more than it currently does.

Information storage is continually evolving. The issue of data or digital degradation is one which has potential ramifications, but because the mechanics and media for storing historical data changes relatively often, archived information, at the state level, is usually relatively fresh. What was once stored on large reels of magnetic tape has been transferred to cassette media, again to even smaller cassettes, and again to even higher density material, so over time, it has been refreshed regularly. Records and documents that have not been digitally stored are subject to physical degradation from light, humidity, pollutants, and every effort should be make to preserve . For example, historical records, legislation, documents dating to the territorial days and before are carefully stored, but should be scanned and made available widely through electronic means. Cost and time to prepare these records and artifacts may seem prohibitive, but electronic preservation will extend their lives, and increase their current usefulness.

Missouri has, through government impetus, MOREnet, and cooperative efforts with telecommunication providers, established a relatively superior infrastructure. In some ways, the state is well advanced of others. The recently enacted federal Telecommunications Act offers incentives for schools and libraries to expand their telecommunication capabilities, offering discounts based on the percentage of children eligible for federal school lunch programs, to qualifying institutions. The Act assumes that there is little existing infrastructure to which institutions can connect. Because of Missouri's REAL (Remote Electronic Access for Libraries), Department of Elementary and Secondary Education initiatives, and other programs, educational and informational agencies in the state are in far better shape to exploit the Telecommunications Act's potential benefits and greatly enhance the usage of electronic resources and information.

Public records and information derived from public records is important, yet its handling has engendered a fair degree of controversy. The Missouri Office of Information Technology has digitized and mounted a large volume of data, which is now publicly accessible. A portion is readable by Geographic Information Systems programming, and reproducible in graphic format. The state contracted with the University of Missouri to expand the material available and to make tabular data more readily convertible to spatial display. The state is further willing to mount and share data from other sources, including county and municipal governments, to make information they developed widely available.

The controversy stems from cost recovery initiatives. Public information may or may not be in formats that adapt themselves to spatial display or to electronic dissemination. All the data needed is very likely present, but converting it will and does require staff time, contractor fees, etc, and thus is expensive. Many entities have taken the position that such information is essentially proprietary, and will distribute or make it available only for a fee. Under the Hancock provision of the State Constitution, fee recovery is freely permitted without having to secure voter approval, and thus entities see no reason to provide it to the state, to educational institutions, libraries, or agencies free of charge. Thus while there is little doubt that information from the assessor's office, from the county clerk, or from municipalities may be widely of interest, there is nothing the state can do to require sub-divisions to provide the material free, and little the state can do to even encourage wide distribution.

As the state increases the available bandwidth, and plans are for significant upgrades, planners envision dramatic increases in electronic transactions. With the digital signature law, with audio-visual transmission capabilities becoming more available, with the relatively easy access to information via the internet, much more can be done than is currently being done. For example, political subdivisions can benefit by availing themselves to goods and services negotiated under and secured through state contracts. Advising the countless political entities about current and upcoming contract opportunities is nearly impossible, but would be fairly easy if the information could be disseminated electronically to virtually all subdivisions across the state. Thus upgrading the infrastructure and extending both capacity and training so that all entities can use electronic services is a primary objective for the future.

Increased bandwidth would also augment access to distance learning. Area seminars could more readily be available. Universities, schools, and agencies could present in-depth, interactive programs to literally statewide audiences. As a corollary, state agencies envision much greater facility sharing so that university courses could be brought to high schools or government buildings, or libraries, thus allowing individuals to benefit from learning experiences without having to travel long distance, and incur additional expense. Such activities are predicated on upgrading the receiving and broadcasting capabilities broadly throughout the state, but it is more than feasible. Not every location would require the utmost in technological sophistication; a relatively simple see-you-see-me system at remote sites would suffice.

MOREnet is actively extending telecommunication capacity within the state. The consortium's objective is provide 10 megabyte per second (mps) service lines to all areas with populations exceeding 75,000; 1.5 mps to areas with more than 15,000 people; 384 kilobyte per second lines to areas greater than 5,000 and 56 kbs service to areas with population less than 5,000. It provides on line access to three products from EBSCO, including magazine indexes, record summaries, and full text articles; two sources from Groliers; Lexus-Nexus to higher education; Gale Research products for Authors. History, and Science; newspapers from Missouri and other states; and coordinates testing and evaluation of products and services for client users.

MOREnet negotiates licenses for multi-site usage, but royalty schedules complicate availability. Lexus-Nexus is only available to libraries connected with institutions of higher education, and cannot be offered or provided to public libraries. Grolier products are limited because the company markets the same resources for private, stand-alone systems.

MOREnet is vitally interested in the Educational Rate Discounts provided for in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It has provided advice and assistance to institutions wishing to apply, but has not been able to get complete information. For example, it is not yet clear whether the Universal Service Fund will fund projects retroactively to January 1, 1998, it's effective date, or if only projects initiated concurrent with an application's approval will qualify. There further exists some controversy over what services are provided by tariff as opposed to by contract. The U.S.F. apparently will fund services obtained through contracts, but not through tariffs.

The Missouri Express project, which MOREnet administers, is designed to create community information networks within areas with 15,000 or more population. The basic service provides some degree of internet access, electronic mail, and the means to post community notices and information, and in some cases, communities can qualify for grants to acquire assets and connectivity. In any case, MOREnet provides counsel, advice, and tech-support. 26 communities have acquired CINs through Missouri Express thus far. Legislative funding for the program will end in Fiscal Year 1999.

The MINTS program is designed to assist teaching by removing constraints on technology, bandwidth, and equipment in the classroom. MOREnet works with schools to provide training, support, and expertise to assist and encourage teachers to more fully utilize electronic resources in their general teaching duties.

The Common Library Platform uses MOREnet's infrastructure to facilitate information transfer among educational institutions. It will for, for example, simplify online borrowing, and ease collaborative efforts toward online reference services.

MOREnet operates through high capacity routers in Columbia, Jefferson City, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, which are linked with one another, and serve as primary linkages to tails feeding into smaller communities throughout the state. Because of rapid customer growth, e.g. those hooked to the backbone, and projected continued growth, MOREnet has predicted that T1 lines, capable of 1.5 mps transmission will have become its standard of service in order to meet bandwidth needs, maintain quality service, and support the increased demand for desktop video and distance learning. Satisfying this objective is complicated because virtually all MOREnet's infrastructure is leased, primarily from Southwestern Bell. However, there are more than twenty telecommunications companies operating in Missouri, from very large and sophisticated servers to virtual "mom and pop" operations which have neither the technical nor technological assets to make full use of MOREnet's services. Mixed interfaces among even the most advanced providers have a tendency to degrade service, and mechanical problems far outside Missouri's borders can so overload relays and routing as to render some networks inoperative. MOREnet is working to secure and assure full peerage on internet routing so that user transmissions are routed in the most expeditious manner possible.

To facilitate growth and development, the Coordinating Board for Higher Education (CBHE) has established an advisory group charged with preparing for the future. The group will consider emerging technologies and their relevance to information access supporting asynchronous data, and internet 2 protocols. Their objective is to provide seamless delivery of data, video, audio, administrative technology, through a dependable, sufficient, and adaptable network backbone. Primary among the concerns to be addressed is MOREnet's support services to users throughout the state. Ideally the agency should provide 24-hour coverage and trouble shooting, to all facilities, locations, and services, regardless of each site's relative capability. To attain this objective, MOREnet seeks to standardize as much as possible. It would not be feasible to support every network coordinating program, so it is wise to focus on Windows NT. The greater the commonality between client systems, the more efficient will be MOREnet's response.

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