'The Tardis' stands like an Eddie Izzard impersonation of an orange - armour plated and stoutly refusing to give up its precious contents - in the front lobby of The Big Issue In The North building. It looks more like a battle-worn hostage taken by the darleks during a raid than a proud node of the recent EU-funded 'Tardis' project to create public access computer terminals, currently being test-run in Manchester and Barcelona.

The first thing worth noting is that it's clearly out of order, the second that it's clad in camo-green metal, crudely bolted together, and the third that there's no keyboard and a faintly worrying slit through which print-outs can pass. In the case of 'The Tardis' it makes sense to judge the book by its cover because, if you'll excuse the pun, it speaks volumes. This is an example of creating a facility in the name of access but with a mind to defence.

Lee Thornton, a resettlement worker at The Big Issue's initiative, The Big Step, who has been watching the reception of 'The Tardis', explains that the user can only reach a limited number of sites which have been purpose-built and organised under subjects such as 'Jobs', 'Accommodation', 'Entertainment' and 'Community'. The user can also send e-mails to the server, the council and the Citizens' Advice Bureau, but certainly not to a friend. Hardly an enticing introduction to the wonders of cyberspace. In their press release, The Manchester Community Information Network - one of the groups involved in the project - attributes the necessity for a 'masked browser' to the wish to "avoid controversy". Although this remark predictably hints at the net's Achilles Heal - the open availability of pornography and other controversial material - a factor which is often used to bolster the case for censorship, the MCIN's position is in some respects fair. As they put it in an e-mail interview with Crash Media, there is a need "to keep online costs realistic". Less persuasively, the MCIN also justify the use of the masked browser as a way to prevent "the system being dominated by net surfers". This remark seems to betray the extent to which the whole notion of public access has been misconstrued by the 'Tardis' project. The qualitative distinction being made here between the legitimacy of certain approved kinds of information gathering and the undesirablility of "net surfing" is part of the problem, because its practical consequence is to perpetuate the exclusion of individuals from the web as it is 'really' experienced by its users.

Such restrictions mean that the 'Tardis', which Thornton describes as "a good idea that got committee-ised", is presently not only off-putting but also often redundant. The latter because the twelve terminals are primarily located in those very information centres (public libraries, council offices, and medical and mental health services locations) which it is offering information about. Finally, the quality of information provided is in itself inadequate. Thornton told us that one of the most practical applications of the scheme, in its present state, for the homeless could have been in finding accommodation: "an expensive thing to undertake when you're on £6 a day, and most bus fares in Manchester are about a pound". But unfortunately, users could only pull up the Evening Standard property pages which are as good as useless when you live in Manchester.

One of the scheme's significant target groups is the homeless, for whom information about the pleasures of Manchester's parks, libraries and other leisure facilities can hardly be seen as essential. The fact that the site which gives up-dates on football scores far outstripped the popularity of other sites amongst (usually first time) users at The Big Issue, emphasises the importance of the pleasure principle involved in getting to know and feel comfortable with new systems. The MCIN reported that the Central Library was the most used terminal and also that job vacancies and news sites were the most popular. This information in no way conflicts with The Big Issue's findings when one considers that library users, on the whole, represent a different social group to Big Issue vendors, with very different skill levels and information needs.

For the system to work there needs to be more room for people to define their own interests and needs, create their own net presence and communicate freely with whoever they please. Creating the opportunity for excluded groups to gain unrestricted access to IT should not be viewed as an superfluous luxury, but a fundamental requirement in a world where IT skills are a prerequisite for most jobs, and commercial and social traffic is increasingly relocating to the net. Exclusion from hypermedia is a factor now contributing to long-term unemployment, homelessness, and social marginalisation. The 'Tardis' scheme represents a lot of funding and goodwill that has achieved only marginal success due to its lack of sensitivity to its different target groups, restrictive and unwieldy interface and the often boring and impractical nature of the information it offers.

Josephine Berry [josie@metamute.com]