San Francisco Public Library Becomes First 10 Gigabit Library in U.S.
From a Joint Announcement:
San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), and the City and County of San Francisco announced today that they have collaborated to provide unprecedented direct connection at 10 gigabits per second access speed to CENIC’s California Research and Education Network (CalREN) and from there to the world.
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SFPL accesses city-owned fiber that is used to connect them to CalREN. SFPL has a direct 10 Gigabit connection to their main library. Seven branches now connect to the main branch at 1 Gigabit, with plans to connect all 27 branch libraries at this speed using city-owned fiber. From CalREN, San Francisco’s libraries are connected to California’s K-12 and higher education systems, to research and education networks throughout the world, and to the public Internet.
“In keeping with our mission of equality and being a 21st century library, this broadband increase allows our patrons to have the very best in access and opportunity,” said City Librarian Luis Herrera.
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“San Francisco was among the pilot sites that preceded the Governor and Legislature’s ‘Lighting Up Libraries Initiative,’ which will bring additional broadband capacity to all of California’s public libraries. 389 libraries will connect starting in July of 2015, with a goal to connect all of California’s 1,112 public libraries in the next few years,” said Fox.
Read the Complete Announcement
Filed under: Libraries, Patrons and Users, Public Libraries

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.