Tucked into the back of the shop, in a dark corner amid the clutter of cookbooks, bottles of seasonings and business papers, a machine that surely would have startled Raven Rutherford's grandmother whirs to life.
Rutherford's computer may not yet take center stage in her Mid-City storefront pie shop, but as she begins tapping into her e-mail, hear her dream:
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Monday November 13, 1995 Home Edition Life & Style Part E Page 2 View Desk 1 inches; 34 words Type of Material: Correction
Incorrect Internet address--In "The Virtual Pie Shop and Other Cyber Dreams" in Sunday's Life & Style section, the wrong Internet address was given for the Inner-City Computer Society. The correct address is http://www.scbbs.com/~iccs
Her shop on Washington Boulevard near La Brea "could be like a cyber cafe, with a few PCs all around here," she says. Soon, she will begin shipping frozen pies for sale in Japan through a distributor she met on the Internet.
"I like the technological part; it's just so fascinating. Your capabilities are endless," she says. "If my grandmother saw a computer in a pie shop, she would have been bowled over."
Just a year ago, the only bytes Rutherford understood were the ones taken from her blackbird pie or oatmeal cake. That was before she joined the Inner-City Computer Society.
Members like Rutherford show what the society is all about, says co-founder James Liggins: sparking awareness of computer technology and the Internet among those who never thought it could do anything for them.
A year ago, Liggins, a Compton resident, and a handful of others in urban communities, launched the Inner-City Computer Society in a meeting room at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Inglewood. Now there are about 100 members, and the group has established a home page on the World Wide Web, the multimedia arm of the Internet global computer network. The page, which Liggins says has been visited by Net surfers from as far as Nigeria, provides links to other Web pages operated by multicultural groups, city, state and federal government agencies, employment and education services and others.
Acutely aware of the lack of computer ownership in inner-city areas, the group holds monthly workshops and seminars at Holy Trinity to stir interest in computers and the Internet. It also conducts field trips to high-technology companies.
"There is no substitute for exposure to the information superhighway," says Liggins, a business consultant who became a computer buff a decade ago while working for an aerospace firm. "No place can you go to get the answer to any question but the Internet."
Perhaps an exaggeration, but the group's concern that the expansion of information technology has not reached everyone is well-founded.
