Libraries: Broadband Leaders of the 21st Century

Gig­envy is driving hundreds of cities, towns and counties across America to contemplate becoming the next Chattanooga, Tennessee, Lafayette, Louisiana or Sandy, Oregon with their blazing fast public­-owned broadband network. The local library might hold the key to their success. No, we don’t mean checking out a book from the library about broadband. We mean incorporating the library institution as a key planning source, a funding partner and a customer source on a community network.

Libraries and their staff probably are one of the most under­appreciated and underused resources in the community broadband movement. Some libraries are in the forefront of creative partnerships with local businesses and community centers that foster leading­edge entrepreneurialism beyond libraries’ walls. Libraries reach out and touch virtually everyone in their communities across the entire economic spectrum, so it’s very exciting to imagine what the library of tomorrow will look like. Libraries often have the fastest broadband connections in the community, in some cases clocking a gigabit or more access capacity going to library buildings. San Antonio, Texas, for instance, has a gig going to each of its 27 branches, as do the libraries systems of Burlington, Vermont and Salt Lake City, Utah. In this digital age of Google and Wikipedia, libraries are still places that huge numbers of people frequent, from kids to senior citizens, in urban areas and rural enclaves.