Libraries have become a broadband lifeline to the cloud for students

[Commentary] As cloud computing has become an integral part of the lives of students at public schools, it has increased the importance of a place generations of students have turned to for much more analog learning needs—the library. Both public and school libraries have always been a source of information for students. And while the Internet has undoubtedly changed the way students do research, cloud-based tools have actually evolved the library's role rather than diminished it.

Public computers at libraries have become an extension of the classroom, and they're an important resource for children who don’t have unfettered access to broadband Internet at home. The cloud has only made those public computers more effective.

[Phil Shapiro is the Public Geek at the Takoma Park Maryland Library, a small public library in the Washington DC-area]