Wednesday, February 26, 1997 THE WEBMASTER How Ted Eselgroth keeps the community cooking on the Internet BY BOB LUNDIN Correspondent If there was ever any sort of a race to get Glen Ellyn represented on the Internet, the winner has emerged. He's native Glen Ellynite Ted Eselgroth who last fall unveiled the village's de facto official web site at www.glen-ellyn.com to the world's Internet users. Eselgroth says he's been getting "hits" and e-mail from as far away as Sweden and Germany. And more importantly, he's getting recognition from influential institutions throughout the community, including the village government. "Ted has put together a nice site, why not use it," says Assistant Village Administrator David Cox, who predicts that more departments in village government will start using Eselgroth's web page instead of the village creating its own. For instance, right now the village has posted a job opening on Eselgroth's electronic message board. "Why pay to duplicate it and compete," adds Cox. After a 30-year hiatus from Glen Ellyn, where Eselgroth worked in video production and communications for giants such as GTE, RCA, and for nonprofits such as Minnesota Public TV, he returned to the village last year. In terms of his career, Eselgroth said that developing web pages and otherwise embracing Internet technology is a natural and important step for him. The 52-year-old Eselgroth is a soft spoken yet enthusiastic man, eager to turn a phrase or let loose a pun. He's been an enthusiastic supporter of the community in the short time since his return, and serves on the School District 41 Technology Advisory Committee, the Village Cable Commission, and is active with the Chamber of Commerce. The Glen Ellyn web site is his second venture into community high-tech service projects; earlier, he had developed a site for Cherokee County, Ga., when he lived outside of Atlanta. The Internet, a.k.a. the World Wide Web, is an international network of linked computers that has millions of data locations which a personal computer user can visit when he or she enters an address code. These destinations might have information on towns, schools, companies, stock markets, governments, libraries, sport teams -- the list is virtually endless. Each is generally called a web site, and like ornaments hanging from the branches of a Christmas tree, each web site has many pages of information attached to it and links to other pages. The Glen Ellyn site already has over 70 pages of custom information, and Eselgroth has been commended by his users for the extent, comprehensiveness and quality he has built into the Glen Ellyn web site -- all on his own initiative To start with, he has compiled information provided by the major institutions in the village, including a run-down of government reports and facts. There's a list of village government offices and services; there are links to DuPage County, Milton Township, and Illinois government agencies. There are census figues, election results, library information, and information on School District 41's upcoming referendum. Nearly all the schools in the area are linked by Eselgroth to www.glen-ellyn.com, including College of DuPage, Wheaton College, and National Louis University. Other categories which Eselgroth has tied in: parks, things to do, commuter information, regional maps, arts and entertainment, clubs and organizations, Glen Ellyn churches, local media, business and commerce, weather, and a photo gallery. Eselgroth said that he is eager to add independently designed pages to the site, and already one football dad has designed and linked Golden Eagles Youth Football onto the site. Generally, private individuals can only post information on a message board, and Eselgroth reserves intricate web pages for nonprofit institutions. In the design of the site, Eselgroth created a main index (home page) as the apex over an "umbrella" which accommodates different pages. One group which Eselgroth courted with an offer to develop a free page is the Glen Ellyn Historical Society. A spokesman for the group, Keith McClow, says that Eselgroth approached them and they liked his ideas. McClow said that there are two reasons why the Internet site is attractive to them: it's a way to reach high-tech motivated teenagers, and the future of historical research seems to be heading toward the net. "Now the Internet doesn't have too much value," said McClow. "But eventually it will be a way to do national searches. It will save a lot of legwork." The historical society is a welcome addition to the web site, but Eselgroth otherwise reserves the right to maintain standards to avoid misuse of the site. So far he has had little to be concerned with other than erasing a few naughty messages that popped up on the community message board. But he said he will draw the line in the case that highly controversial groups, such as white supremacists, try to snag a page on the site. "In terms of the umbrella, I'm trying to be unbiased," he said. "But I'm sure at this point that somewhere this will be tested." Eselgroth plays down any criticism that he is a private individual exploiting the village's name for a web site. He considers the site as "a modern high-tech version of an independently produced city directory." Like newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, Eselgroth says that he is taking an initiative to develop a privately owned media and use a name which hadn't yet been used. "I'm no different than The Glen Ellyn News," he said. In fact, said Eselgroth, there is a tendancy in village government-owned web sites to have a comparatively narrow definition of the type of pages and information to be made available. They tend to focus on government activities and little else, he says. Likewise, on a site owned by an organization like a chamber of commerce, the tendency is to bally-hoo the town at the expense of honest criticism and debating controversial issues. With an independently owned site, there is room for government information, business information, and honest give and take. With the hundreds of volunteer hours which Eselgroth has put into www.glen-ellyn.com, he does have his eye on one vehicle for earning income: an advertising service which he calls Glen Ellyn Visionaries. He will design pages for businesses and charge about $40 a month to post them on the site. Other than that, he's doing this for community service. "Whether this ever makes a cent, I'll keep it up," said Eselgroth. ©1997 The Glen Ellyn News. Reprinted with permission.

Email Ted Eselgroth at ted@glen-ellyn.com.

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