Small Libraries and the Digital Divide

why it matters, a lot

Jessamyn West

www.librarian.net/talks/wrls

22may08

1. The information poor. you may be providing their only access to technology and must act like it
2. The information don't care. technology adoption is more a management issue than the money issue that it is often described as

People don't use computers for many reasons, we have the information poor and the information don't care in Vermont.
     
source: Vermont Telecommunications plan

Yes, that line near the bottom says "never heard of."       source: Vermont Telecommunications plan

• 66% of Vermonters had Internet access at home [2003/2004]
• 25% use cable or DSL.
• So... 15% of Vermonters have highspeed internet. [100,000 people]
• "Currently, about 56 percent of Verizon phone lines in the state can support high-speed Internet service."
• Verizon aims for 80% by 2010

source: Vermont Telecom. plan, Burlington Free Press

The Pew Digital Divisions survey splits users into three loose categories:

• the "truly disconnected" (22%) One in five American adults have never used the Internet or email and don't live in an internet connected household.
• the highly wired elite (33%) 33% broadband at home. high income, high education, younger
• everyone else (40%) 40% of American adults have modest connections to the online world, either by only using dial-up or being a non-user living with someone with an Internet connection. "broadband access is a stronger predictor of online behavior than level of experience"

Which category do your staff fall into? Your users? You?

source: Pew Digital Divisions report

Wisconsin Public Library Consortium survey [link]

• 26% had no Internet at home and 23% only had dial-up.
• Only 15% of users with dial-up or no internet said they were interested in broadband
• 22% do not use the Internet in a given week

[a little more discussion from me]

The tech dilemma is a management issue disguised as a money issue. we're entering the age of multiple right answers. managing smart people "how can I provide you the tools you need to do an awesome job?" What do we think we know?

• Technology costs money.
  everything costs money, we're not prioritizing tech.
• Patrons break technology.
  we can't fix technology
• Upkeep costs time and time = money.
  we can't fix technology
• You have to learn this whether you want to or not.
• Everything you learn you have to relearn because it changes so fast.

Really?

Except for...

• Taxes
• Job applications
• Interacting with friends & family
• When the hurricane blows your house away
• What else?

And if libraries don't step up to the plate, who does?

"I don't know what it will be like to have books from our libraries injected into our culture again, but I'd like to see it"

Jessamyn West is the editor of the weblog librarian.net and the co-editor of Revolting Librarians Redux. She works as a community technology mentor with people and libraries in Central Vermont, teaching email to seniors and making tiny websites for tiny libraries. IM her at iamthebestartist.

This presentation was created in HTML using CSS. There was no PowerPoint involved in this presentation except as a nagging bad example. The layout and stylesheet are available to borrow via a share and share alike creative commons license. See source code for details.

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