The Mercedes Library Exemplifies a Vital Effort to Promote Digital Independence
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Digital Beat
The Mercedes Library Exemplifies a Vital Effort to Promote Digital Independence
Following up on the release of The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead, we are providing examples of core, complementary, and coalition models for digital equity work. This series of organizational profiles delve deeply into how these programs work, the problems they are best suited to solve, the populations they are best suited to reach, and the support they need to succeed. Learn more about the Human Infrastructure of Broadband Project.
In a 2023 newsletter, the Mercedes Library team featured a success story about a student. At the start of a course, the student was hesitant to learn anything other than basic computer skills. He expressed great eagerness to return to the workforce, so he was more than willing to do what it took to learn his way around a computer. Following his participation, he managed to get a job with AARP, utilizing his newly acquired computer skills to show his competency and ability to do the work required of him.
We had a middle-aged man who spent his entire life in blue-collar work who attended our basic course. He had recently retired and was interested in working for AARP, an organization that he had never imagined being able to work for. After moving through the basic course, he then took the advanced course! Once he completed all the courses, he worked on his résumé and got his dream job at AARP.
—Digital Navigator, Mercedes Library
History and Context
The Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library in Mercedes, Texas provides free public internet access via 26 adult computers and 10 children’s computers, as well as to patrons who use their own devices to access the internet through the library’s Wi-Fi connection. The library also offers laptops and internet hotspots to be checked out to community residents. Digital navigation and skills building align with the library’s mission “to inform, educate, and entertain through a variety of formats with the purpose of strengthening our community.” Because the library aims to serve the entire community, its computer classes are open to everyone, but library staff report that older adults are most likely to sign up. The community of more than 16,000 residents is majority Hispanic (92 percent). Services are offered in English and Spanish and are available through office hours, by appointment, and through classes.
As a core information services provider, the Mercedes Library has a long history of providing technology support services. However, the services were never formalized or systematic until funding was secured in 2021. Early digital navigation services involved library staff supporting patrons with computer and technology needs when requested. Digital navigators always provided this service on an individualized, ad hoc basis. The Mercedes Library leadership discovered the opportunity to increase its digital navigation services by pursuing more funding for the library. In 2021, the team found a grant opportunity through the Texas State Library and Archives Commission that would support digital navigation classes. The library applied for the opportunity and was awarded the funds from the State of Texas. With these funds, the library could hire two part-time digital navigators, both current library team members, and they began to develop formal digital navigation courses.
Based on other library needs and the part-time funding for the work, the digital navigators still needed formal training for these roles. The team was fortunate to have staff members who were credentialed in information technology—one with a B.S. in IT and the other pursuing a degree in IT—and were familiar with the library’s community members and services. The digital navigators engaged in self-paced learning modules that they sought out independently to prepare for their new roles as course facilitators. Once trained, the digital navigators began offering technology support by providing computer courses, conducting one-on-one tech support appointments, and providing devices when needed.
Services
The Mercedes Library provides various technology support services to its library patrons. The leading service is the technology support classes, offered since 2021 to diverse community patrons as young as 18 and up to 88 years old. The courses are offered over five-week durations, twice a week, in two-hour-long sessions. Participants can sign up online or with library staff in person or over the phone. First-time participants are asked to sign up for the Basic Computer Class and, subsequently, can move through the more advanced courses. The Basic Computer Class covers computer basics; the advanced courses include programming support, including topics such as MS Office basics and Google Docs training. Some other courses are available to help participants with using their smartphones. The team designed courses to support participants’ digital independence by building on their growing knowledge over time. Upon course completion, participants receive certificates.
Beyond course offerings, the two digital navigators support customers with one-on-one technology support and device access. One-on-one technology support services help patrons complete online job applications, set up electronic devices, pay bills, schedule doctor appointments, and perform other online tasks. Patrons also have access to select digital devices when needed. The team provides access to Chromebooks for students studying computer science and internet access hotspots for students. Hotspots are offered for temporary support to students for yearlong durations.
These services can be requested by walk-in library patrons or via appointment but are not limited to being provided exclusively within library spaces. To increase reach to community members with limited access to the library, in-home customer support services are available. Given the limited capacity of the small library and digital navigation teams to support in-home visits, the team desires more community partnerships to boost connection to non–library users.
Key Partners
The Mercedes Library has yet to have any active partnerships to support its digital navigation services, and the team attributes this to its limited capacity for relationship building. The team mentions that a couple of local churches have been working on relationships with the library but that the efforts to foster relationships have been a challenge, illustrating a need that many small library teams must address to boost their digital navigation service reach.
What We Can Learn
Adaptability Is Essential to Ensure Quality Participation
The program team recognized early that the course design did not accommodate the participants’ availability. The original courses were held for three hours twice a week over 12 weeks. The team noticed a decline in attendance with this format, so it adjusted to a shorter format with two-hour courses twice a week over five weeks. Patrons have been more present and more engaged and have completed these shorter-format classes. This adjustment also has benefited the course instructors, who have found the shorter formats more manageable.
Another adaptation was the addition of more advanced courses so that essential-course attendees could continue their learning. This adaptive approach has enabled the team to better support attendees and guide them toward digital independence.
Small Libraries Need Support to Prioritize Formal Digital Navigation Services
Digital navigation services require time and capacity, both of which are limited in small libraries with limited staff. Library leadership and staff are actively involved in various roles, managing the library and engaging the community. The Mercedes Library director is involved in managing the library and in historic preservation, marketing, event management, and other tasks for the City of Mercedes. Digital navigators are also engaged in various roles within the library. Such active, widespread engagement makes prioritizing digital navigation challenging for any library team member. The current digital navigators at the Mercedes Library are tasked with other areas of need, and, at times, participants may not receive support quickly.
Funding Is Essential for Small Libraries
Small libraries like the Mercedes Library have limited funding sources. Mercedes’s financial needs led it to digital navigation courses. However, due to limited funding, the leadership team hired the digital navigators for part-time work initially, and the library director expressed concern that they are underpaid for their services. The library may not be able to continue this work once these digital navigators leave, as Mercedes cannot recruit competitively for these roles. Beyond proper compensation, staffing and marketing are also activities that require funding.
Providing Services Only in Library Spaces Limits Reach
The Mercedes Library team has limited capacity to support digital navigation services outside the library. Still, leadership wants to move services into the community more regularly to support non–library users. They express excitement about the individuals they have reached so far. Still, they recognize that many of these individuals are library regulars. As a small library pursuing multiple goals concurrently, the organization seeks to boost digital independence in its community while bringing in more library users. It is considering strategies to increase its reach, as marketing efforts are limited to flyers and word of mouth. Community-based services may help expand offerings.
Partnerships Require Relationship Building, Which Demands Ongoing Staff Time
One specific way to boost reach is through community partnerships. The library leadership team has discussed connecting with new community partners. The initial connection may be easy, but it must be coupled with maintaining new relationships, which takes time and development that the leadership team struggles to manage. Reflecting on their limited time and capacity, they have found that this need was often overshadowed by larger ones, including daily library operations, seeking funding, and staying connected with the City of Mercedes’s needs and priorities. Balancing these diverse needs with a small staff has been described as a significant challenge for expanding the reach and impact of the digital navigation program.
Device Access and Digital Navigation Services Should Exist Concurrently
The library leadership team recognizes that digital navigation services and device access are interconnected needs. They highlight this need while expressing concern that there are limited device access services at the Mercedes Library and that there have been customers who were unable to access devices when they needed them. The leadership team emphasizes that this is a need that must be continually funded, as digital navigation services are less valuable if patrons do not have access to the devices they need at home.
Looking Ahead
While grants provide funding to start digital navigation programs, this funding approach is not sustainable. Since beginning its digital navigation program in 2021, the Mercedes Library team has secured three separate grants from (1) the State of Texas, (2) the Ladd & Katherine Hancher Library Foundation, and (3) Methodist Healthcare Ministries. The team works hard to ensure that the program maintains funding. Team members emphasize the importance of securing permanent funding to maintain this service in the long term.
Currently, staffing is minimal at the Mercedes Library; only two members of staff are full-time, funded digital navigators. Small staffing limits the team's capacity to develop this program beyond its current reach. Team members feel that sustaining this program requires increasing its reach, and they need more staff designated for this specific support. This outreach need coexists with the need for more funding and more partnerships, which the library could pursue with more intention and staff support.
Reaching beyond regular library users via community-based outreach is required to build this program. Current marketing strategies have been effective, including digital advertising, flyers, social media, and word of mouth. However, the team wants to do more targeted advertising. Some suggestions include buying newspaper advertisements to reach older adults and engaging in more door-to-door community outreach activities. These activities would involve more staffing and funding, both associated with program sustainability.
The library director envisions continued expansion and adaptation of the program, with partnerships, ongoing funding, and consistent staffing. The emphasis is on making digital literacy accessible, especially for underserved populations. Thinking about the future, the team anticipates that technology will continue to grow and that tech support needs will vastly change and increase as new products arise. The team will need to continue to adapt to emerging technology needs (e.g., artificial intelligence products) and develop courses that address those needs. Continual adaptation is also connected directly to retaining digital navigation staff who will deliver these services.
In conclusion, the Mercedes Library’s digital navigation program exemplifies a vital effort to promote digital independence within the community. While the initiative has achieved significant milestones since its inception in 2021, challenges such as funding, staffing limitations, and the need for broader community outreach remain. To fully realize its potential, the library is focusing on cultivating partnerships, adapting to emerging technology needs, and securing consistent funding to ensure that all community members can access and use digital tools.
Written by: Shelli Golson-Mickens
More in this Series:
- At the Denver Public Library, People Skills are the Most Important Quality When Choosing Digital Navigators
- The Mercedes Library Exemplifies a Vital Effort to Promote Digital Independence
- How Everyone On Navigates Change to Deliver Digital Equity
- Free Geek, Devices, and Digital Equity
- Mass General Brigham Understands that Digital Equity Supports Health Equity
- Northwest Center Engages Community, Advances Digital Skills
- The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Leans Into Collaboration
- North Carolina Community College System Brings the Classroom to the Learners
- Digital Connect Makes Digital Navigation Approachable
- Black Churches 4 Digital Equity: Community Anchors and Committed Advocates
- Seattle's Equity-Based Approach
- The Kūpuna Collective: A Public Health Coalition Advancing Digital Equity
- What We Know About the Human Infrastructure of Broadband
- The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead
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