At the outset of the Shipley Communities Online project it was acknowledged that one of the key promises of such projects lies in empowering groups and individuals to participate in the Information Society by making use of the new technologies to improve both social and economic prospects. To this end it was agreed that each centre in the project should develop its own website.

As a starting point a 'Webpage survey' was sent out to the centres in which views on content were solicited. Many and varied suggestions were put forward covering local archives, centre calendars, local sports, community newspaper and information on various clubs and activities.

Over the course of the past year the various centres have been developing at different rates; a big push was given by the Web training days held at the TAP (Training Access Points) office in Shipley library, after which the centres were first given a presence on the Internet. Since then progress has been uneven, with some sites showing a fair deal of activity and others very little. Many of those who were involved in the Web training days have expressed a keen interest in attending other sessions, but there are problems with co-ordinating the different parties involved. It may in fact be of greater value to hold intensive one-to-one sessions in the centres themselves with people who have been given responsibility for the websites.

Content is king, so they say. If centres have an already developed tradition of information provision this makes the establishment of a first website easy to attain. The Windhill website, for example, contains the centre's Annual Report, which has a wealth of material. Meanwhile, the main Windhill site is designed to develop organically as content is added. That is to say, the structure is in place in terms of the pages for the Homework Club, the Furniture Store and so on. Shipley New Start carries information about its courses and jobsearch facilities. The Shipley & Baildon Volunteer Bureau has its database of volunteer vacancies on its site. There are plans to put the extensive sporting materials of Bolton Woods on their website.