The BBC reports that University of Maryland Lecturers Ben Shneiderman and Jennifer Preece are proposing “community-driven websites to be run by trained volunteers working in conjunction with the 6,100 local 911 services around the US.“ The BBC article is really interesting and points to the potential applications of social networking sites in local and/or national crisis situations.  Shneiderman and Preece’s proposal is apparently outlined in this month’s Science magazine, but I wasn’t able to find the referenced article online.