Strike one for the digital divide: After years of tapering off usage and donations, the public library system in this country is experiencing a resurgence, as the unemployed, people without home Internet access and students turn to these community cornerstones for the free broadband. But libraries are struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation in infrastructure, so the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Friday announced a pilot broadband initiative meant to help libraries give patrons all the 21st century updates they deserve.
The Foundation is running the pilot program in seven states (Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Virginia), to be administered by two nonprofit organizations. About $6.1 million goes to Connected Nation, a broadband Internet advocacy group, while $850,000 goes to the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy, which focuses on implementing sustainable broadband strategies. One of the goals of the latter is to create a series of case studies to show other public libraries how to replicate the models employed in the pilot program, if successful.
