Boston Public Library and Partners Win Broadband Stimulus

The Boston Public Library (BPL) partnered with the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) and Boston Centers for Youth and Families (BCYF) to win $1.9 million in the first round of broadband stimulus awards. The BPL plans to add at least 281 public terminals for accessing the Internet. Among the winning application's promises was to organize a schedule of Internet usage classes to go with the new computers. The city's main library will offer one class per day, while the other 25 branches will run a minimum of a single class per week. At least one class in Spanish will happen at a single branch per month as well. The BPL's share of the stimulus winnings will be roughly $500,000, which will go mostly for purchasing hardware. The BPL needed to contribute $100,000 in matching funds. Half of it came from putting aside money within the BPL's existing budget for wiring the terminals. David Leonard, chief technology officer for the BPL, found the remaining $50,000 from other city sources. The library will do cross-promotion with the computer centers run by the BHA and BCYF. The three agencies crafted their stimulus application so that they wouldn't be in competition with one another. All three will offer classes, but in many cases, the BHA and BCYF won't offer courses already provided by the BPL. For example, the BHA and BCYF may leave Internet research classes to the BPL because librarians are especially well suited for teaching research.