 Internet access at libraries benefitting us all; pictured above, students doing homework |
For a period approaching almost a decade, most urban libraries have made Internet access available to the community. In 1996, when just 28 percent of all libraries across North America had PC’s available for public access to the Internet, in 2004 that figure has grown to more than 95 percent.
Internet-connected computers are clearly bringing more people into libraries. A year after computers are put in libraries that do not have them, visits rise 30 percent on the average and attendance typically remains higher, according to a study led by Andrew C. Gordon, a professor of public policy at the University of Washington. Over the last six years, visits to the nation’s 16,400 public libraries have increased more than 17 percent, a trend that can be partly attributed to the spread of computers with Internet access.
In a New York Times story, written by Steve Lohr, the contention is made that public library Internet access has helped to “close the digital divide” by “allowing minorities, immigrants, lower-income groups and people in rural areas” the same kind of broadband Internet access available to most urban, middle class North Americans.
Not only has the digital divide begun to close, the availability of public Internet access has succeeded in almost doubling library visits by teenagers, people over the age of 50, and members of ethnic minorities. Said one head librarian, “It’s a whole clientele that didn’t come here before.”
