New Report From ALA: “Leverage Libraries to Receive Digital Equity for All”

From the American Library Association (ALA):

Today the American Library Association (ALA) released Leverage libraries to Receive Digital Equity for All, which illustrates libraries’ longstanding work to advance digital equity and makes the case for policymakers to draw on the expertise of library professionals in designing state and local digital equity plans required to receive the influx of federal funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to support digital inclusion for all.

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More than two-thirds of the $65 billion in the IIJA will be allocated directly to the states and territories based on approval of their five-year digital equity plans, which must include engagement with community partners such as libraries. Leverage Libraries to Receive Digital Equity for All spotlights a few of the many ways America’s 117,000+ libraries of all types—including school, public, community college, college & research, tribal, and special—are instrumental in supporting and advancing digital equity, including:

• Providing a rural community access to medical care that is a 90-minute drive one way through a partnership between and the University of North Texas Health Science Center and the Pottsboro (Texas) Area Library, which created private telehealth rooms that patrons with no or low bandwidth at home can use to meet with medical practitioners.
• Building media literacy skills so users are informed, engaged, and think critically about the information they consume and create online through the Fearless Learning program in San Antonio College Library
• Offering a maker lab that includes software and hardware to support experiential learning and spark innovation at the Norman (Okla.) High School Library Learning Commons
• Providing employment support to the broader community through workshops, services, and tools at Eastern Illinois University Extended Learning program
• Empowering community members who have served time in jail or prison to create their own businesses through the New Start Entrepreneurship Incubator program in Gwinnett County (Ga.) Public Library

Direct to Full Text Report: Leverage libraries to Receive Digital Equity for All
14 pages; PDF.

Direct to Complete News Release

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