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Libraries Expanding Services in the Twenty-First Century Digital Economy

Libraries serve as a hub of knowledge across a wide range of topics, helping community residents find the information they need for class projects, research, job training, and more. Libraries are rising to meet the growing demand for broadband Internet availability and providing more services to make information more accessible to more people. For residents of a community that don’t have Internet access at home –such as low-income households or rural areas where broadband is unavailable – libraries are the number one resource for all things technology. Though reliance on libraries and the services they offer has increased dramatically with the rise in technology, adequate broadband resources still remain elusive to libraries in many areas.

Besides offering the latest New York Times Bestsellers and a host of encyclopedias, many libraries are quickly becoming a hotspot for cutting-edge technology. A 2013 survey from the American Library Association showed that 97.5% of libraries help visitors fill out online government forms, such as income taxes, and 98% offer technology training, and other programs that employers require. Connect Ohio joined these initiatives in 2010 with the Every Citizen Online program, which provided 80,000 computer training hours at libraries and other community anchor institutions to over 40,000 Ohioans. Libraries are also offering social media classes as an avenue for residents of rural areas and senior citizens to easily stay connected to friends and family. Many provide free access to a wide range of databases through programs like the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN), while others are making digital content available online for app developers and entrepreneurs to use, such as the Digital Public Library of America, which hosts over 10 million items from more than 1,600 contributors. 

Yet, despite the useful opportunities and access to vital information that libraries provide, an astounding number of these public resources remain unconnected to adequate high-speed Internet. The American Library Association recommends that all libraries serving less than 50,000 people utilize broadband with speeds of at least 100 Mbps, which allows users to quickly load web pages, download large documents, and watch videos with clarity. However, as reported in a July 2013 Connected Nation Policy Brief, nine states and Puerto Rico showed in a survey that less than 3% of libraries on average have access to these speeds. In Ohio alone, only 1% of libraries have access to these speeds.  This discrepancy is exaggerated further in rural areas, where broadband is needed most, with an adequate connectivity average of only 2%. 

In July 2013 the FCC expanded the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, commonly known as the E-rate program, which has been instrumental in obtaining affordable telecommunications for schools and libraries. Spurred by research from broadband advocate groups like Connected Nation, rising demand for reliable broadband and the opportunities that access provides to citizens, the FCC raised the E-rate annual budget from 2.4 to 3.9 billion. This will help to ensure that libraries get access to fast and reliable broadband and those online public services continue to expand.

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