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CascadeLink | About CascadeLink
CascadeLink's Mission Statement:To improve citizen access to information and technology in the Portland, OR / Vancouver, WA metropolitan-region.Background Information:CascadeLink represents an interjurisdictional effort to gather information, provide links to access points for citizen involvement and to provide online access to citizens living in the Portland, OR/ Vancouver, WA metropolitan-region. The network specifically serves Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties in Oregon and Clark County in Washington. Agencies interested in launching the network first met in the fall of 1995. Participants included representatives from Metro Regional government, the Portland Area Library System (PORTALS), Portland State University, Multnomah County, Multnomah County Library, the City of Portland, Oregon Civic Network Coalition, Portland Office of Neighborhood Associations (now the Office of Neighborhood Involvement), Portland Public Schools, Tualatin Valley Community Access (TCVA), U.S. Rep. Furse's office, then U.S. Rep. Wyden's office and US West Communications. From these early meetings, the Regional Information Technology Network (RITNet) was born. Multnomah County Library hired a Community Information System Program Specialist, and the project was launched, partially funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Governmental representatives and citizens from Washington County, Clark County, Clackamas County, the City of Vancouver, GroveNet and others joined early participants. The group broke into committees in order to work more efficiently. In 1997, PORTALS further joined the collaboration by agreeing to organize a collection of web-based federal and international governmental listings to augment the regional and state collections that were already in place. Also, in 1997, Southwest Washington Community Network (SWWCN) and CascadeLink members decided to link freely to information on each other's network relating to Clark County (Vancouver, WA). SWWCN is housed at the Washington State University Library (Vancouver). The network has grown dramatically since its inception and there are an increasing number of partners. RITNet decided to change its name in late 1997, as a response to community comments. Many people felt that the name RITNet did not really reflect the region. After much debate, RITNet held an election from its Web site , and the community chose the name CascadeLink. The conversion to CascadeLink included changing the domain name from http://www.region.portland.or.us/ to http://www.cascadelink.org/. At that time, the site was redesigned and a community calendar and search engine were added. The name change was implemented on April 23rd, 1998.Today, Multnomah County Library maintains most of the content on the site with input from its partners and the community. The library links where possible to large service providers such as Housing Connections, Doing Business in Portland and Oregon Helps. CascadeLink links to Portland Beehive for basic how-to information. How Is CascadeLink Administered?CascadeLink is heavily supported by the Community Information Program at Multnomah County Library. Staff at the Library do the bulk of the design work and Donna Reed, the Web Services Coordinator, coordinates the site and disseminates information about the project. The subcategories are maintained by the library and by a number of collaborative partnerships.
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