THREE of this State's biggest institutions have just "gone digital" within a week of each other: the National Gallery has built a multimedia centre as part of its refurbishment (see story below), and RTE and the Government cave unveiled their own Websites.
RTE's site (at RTE's http://www.rte.ie) capitalises on its experience running 2FM's popular Web pages, and consolidates existing pages of shows such as Soundbyte and Gerry Ryan Tonight. The new service was marked by a live Internet "broadcast" of last Friday's Late Late Show.
"RTE Online" boasts over 600 pages of news, sport, statistics, transcripts of speeches by its managers, videos which you can order online, and the (sparse) Aertel version of its programme listings. In fact, Aertel plays a prominent role in the project - all Aertel and Gaeltext pages are now available on the Web, which means blocky graphics but rapidly updated information.
Another key feature is that many radio programmes can be downloaded, in .WAV file format or as RealAudio clips. A major drawback is that they can't be played live - you have to download the full show first, and files run to several megabytes. RTE also intends uploading documents based on the subtitles of its top TV shows. While parts of the site still have "under construction" signs, the graphics are fast and the overall project has a lively feel.
The Government's more sedate site (at http://www.irlgov.ie) has been a long time coming. At its launch, Minister for Finance Ruairi Quinn described it as an essential element of the Government's approach to the Information Society".
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, writes in his "welcome page": "The Internet offers my Government colleagues and I [sic] an exciting and new opportunity to communicate with a rapidly growing number of users in Ireland and abroad. Delivering a quality customer service is a priority for my Department."
A customer service? The language of shopping mails and customer service has replaced that good old fashioned term - citizens. But has the Web site been worth the wait, and what do customers/tax payers/citizens get for their money?
The main menu lists the 13 organisations online. More departments are promised, and the notable absences include the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht (yes, this is the same Minister who published a green paper on broadcasting and the impact of new technologies such as the Internet) and the Department of Justice.
Education Minister Niamh Bhreathnach's pages announce: "It is my intention that our Web pages will develop and evolve in line with experience and, in this regard, your views and suggestions for improvement to it [sic] are most welcome."
Now, before you start suggesting that the Minister ought to go back to school, let's take her up on her offer, and give a few "views and suggestions" about the Government's site.
. It is too time consuming. Pages are very slow to upload due to the ornate logos - the opening page - alone is a staggering 40K. Web sites with fancy graphics and data heavy photos might grab the headlines in Net magazines and impress the client when shown on super fast machines with direct connections, but what about mere mortals with ordinary equipment?
. The search engine is frustrating. A search engine is a key tool for navigating through online information: you type a word or phrase, and the engine locates all documents containing it. But with this particular engine, a maximum of 25 matching documents are listed after one search. It doesn't give links to the other dozens of documents which might also match. And unlike other search engines it doesn't give the opening few lines of the document, to give some idea of its content.
. There are too many "dangling links". This flaw might be excusable in a site under construction, but the search engine also generates a surprising number of "404 object not found" error messages.
. Why Verity? The search software wasn't designed by an Irish firm but by a California based one - Verity Inc. Hardly a vote of confidence in our indigenous software industry or computer science departments in the likes of TCD or DCU, which would be well able for the job. Or if they had to shop abroad, why not go for a much better product (e.g. AltaVista)?
. There are very few hypertext links within documents. This is surprising, given the nature of the medium. Even when pieces of contact information such as email addresses are given, often these aren't links you can click on.
. It's very insular. The nature of the Web is such that you'd expect links to other sites, such as pages of general Irish interest, or RTE's new site, or local government agencies, or the EU, or other countries' governments. But generally there aren't any: the Department of Health's separate site (at htto://www.doh.ie) is a notable exception.
. It has too many unnecessary routes. Time and again, when you click on a link you're sent to a page which isn't your "final" destination; instead it's yet another intermediary page, with yet another link to the page you actually want. Perhaps somebody thought that this would provide the cyberspace equivalent of The Civil Service Runaround, where you are sent from section to section with the wrong form.
. The level of interactivity is mind bogglingly low. Apart from the search engine, there don't appear to be any "forms" or similar devices for ordinary users to input information. These could have ranged from doing calculations on your actual income after a Budget, to taking part in discussion forums.
. And where's the President? In other countries, the idea of having an e mail discourse - or a live online conversation (using technologies such as Internet Relay Chat) with one's head of state has already been realised. But in Ireland, well, there is no candle in cyberspace.
. The Irish language policy is all over the place. The Department of Social Welfare (which has its own separate site) offers users the option to read English or Irish language versions of the same information. But other departments are stubborn monoglots. Or they give separate links in English and Irish, but both links go to the same page where the main text is often only in English.
. What about foreigners? Technically, the Web is ideal for giving multilingual options - click on a flag icon and you get the German, French or Spanish version or whatever. But even the Foreign Affairs pages - which you'd expect to be foreigner friendly - presume you can read English (notwithstanding the token Irish).
. Even in English, there is too much gobbledygook. Take the Department of the Taoiseach's [opening page, which begins thus:
"To provide the Taoiseach, and the Ministers of State at his Department, with the information and strategic policy advice essential to the effective leadership and co ordination of Government policy formulation and implementation. To do so, in consultation with other Government Departments and based on consensus with the Social Partners and other representative interests, in an innovative and developmental way that makes a distinctive contribution."
Are these sentences? In what language?
Italicised words often collide into the words which follow (as if somebody had gone around subtracting the spaces); RTE is spelt "RTe" and Telecom Eireann becomes "Telecom eireann". Hugh Coveney's "Curriculum vitae" (all one word) boasts:
"Elected Alderman, Cork Corporation having June 1979 headed the poss (sic) at the first attempt.
Should so many glitches be tolerated, from the very people who draw up the laws of the land?
. The coverage is patchy. This is to be expected, given that only 13 departments are online. The ones on separate sites (such as Health, Foreign Affairs, Social Welfare, Finance) are generally far more informative and better laid out, probably because they've been online for some time.
. There is relatively little everyday, useful information. Plenty of information is out there which State agencies have already collected, which the electorate has already paid for, and which has already been computerised.
For example, why can't you do an online search of Telecom Eireann's directories for all dialling areas in the State? This information is already in a digital form, and hardly a State secret.
Similarly, taxpayers have already footed the bill for the collection of data by the Central Statistics Office. It is already digital. The Government Stationery Office charges for a printed version of it. Yet an online version would be less wasteful (think of all that ink and dead trees) and far more flexible.
. Even the everyday politics of a representative democracy is missing. The site has plenty of Ministerial speeches and large photographs of them. But at the end of the day, what is more important? Big, ego boosting mugshots, or the text of what is said in the Dail and Senate?
Picture a situation where citizens - all our citizens, not just those who can afford PCs and modems and Internet accounts - have online access to the texts of Oireachtas debates, to Ministers' questions and speeches in the House. Digital texts that you can search for by key words, over months and years. Official Dail reports that would also be available to the electorate as soon as they are typed up - rather than the current two week delay in the case of the printed version.
PERHAPS these will be regarded as harsh criticisms. The project is officially just over a week old, and has had fewer than 6,000 visitors.
The site was established by the Civil Service Centre for Organisation and Management Development in Ruairi Quinn's Department, "with the active support of the Departments concerned". HEAnet was the Internet Service Provider; Sysnet provided the firewall (security) technology; LAN Communications gave integration support; and Ireland On Line and 4Corners Ltd "advised and assisted" on the page designs.
But the overall project deserves to be kept under close public scrutiny. After all, we are all "customers" of the Departments involved. We are paying for this online experiment.
There are plenty of examples of companies and organisations using the Web as yet another marketing gimmick, as a digital facade. The Government's new Web pages could be much more than this. They could be a useful resource for its citizens, a more two way medium, a public space where the State and its representatives become far more open and accountable to their citizens - oops, I mean their online customers.
In other words, is the Web site going to be a cosmetic exercise, or a major extension of our democratic powers in years to come?