The big city library as Internet provider
Some of the United States’ bigger urban library systems have begun lodging a public protest against the formula federal rulemakers are considering for the distribution of billions of dollars for wireless Internet infrastructure.
The Federal Communications Commission is thinking of divvying up so-called E-Rate funds to libraries based on square footage rather than users or some other metric, a calculation that city libraries argue gives an unfair advantage to their more sprawling suburban counterparts. And now perhaps the biggest name in the US public libraries has dipped into the debate.
The New York Library system - a billion-dollar entity with 92 branches and some 17 million volumes -- sent a letter to the FCC under the signature of Anthony "Tony" Marx, its chief executive and president. Marx reiterated the "smaller footprints but higher attendance rates" argument made by his peers in Hartford, Memphis, Seattle and elsewhere, but he put a local twist on it, writing that Internet access and Internet-enabled training programs, like ESL classes, are "essential in helping to address the inequalities we face in New York City and across the country."
The big city library as Internet provider