PAT - Characteristics and Choices of Public Access Internet Users

Provision of public Internet access has been viewed by government as the key step towards encouraging uptake among people who do not have access to technology in the home or office, and as an important means of building an equitable information society. In 2001 the Victorian Public Library Network provided over 1 million hours of public Internet access via more than 950 workstations located in over 240 sites across the state.

The PAT project was part of a wider research undertaking designed to gain a better understanding of the user population of Victorian public library public Internet access services.

The survey was conducted with the assistance of VICLINK Reference Co-op and with resourcing support from VICLINK and Monash University Small Grants Fund. This component of the research was a questionnaire based survey. The questionnaire was evolved to allow longitudinal comparison with an earlier Reference Co-op questionnaire "A day in the life of the Internet". A number of additional demographic and attitudinal questions were included in this later survey