Libraries

In the 2020s, public policy should recognize that bits are books, bits are blackboards, and bits are basic tools of medical practice. In other words, broadband networks that run to schools or libraries or health-care facilities are not built to carry only scholastic or literary or medical information.

Policymakers should help enable community anchor institutions to connect to their users wherever they are. Policymakers should recognize that the mission of community anchor institutions is to improve lives. Broadband is a key element in fulfilling that mission. Baltimore’s public school system has created a classroom in a community center to offer training in internet access. Librarians note that the provision of skills training is a natural fit with the historic missions of their institutions—offering a trusted space in which people of all ages can learn in the ways that best suit them.

Community anchor institutions should be at the center of any comprehensive national strategy to promote the availability and use of High-Performance Broadband. Community anchor institutions use broadband to provide essential services to their community, such as education, information access, and telehealth services. But in the 21st century, community anchors’ missions are moving beyond their walls. Libraries no longer deliver knowledge that is housed only within their buildings or the covers of hardbound books.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced the approval of $10 million for multi-purpose facilities in Tribal communities under the US Department of the Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF), part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.

The American Rescue Plan invested in all of America and provided direct relief to every town, city, county, Tribe and state for the first time in American history. The American Rescue Plan included major investments to critical areas, including $25 billion to jumpstart universal broadband access—including Broadband Connections for 18 million students through the Emergency Connectivity Fund so that schools and libraries could close the homework gap.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced the E-Rate and Rural Health Care (RHC) programs’ annual caps for funding year 2024. The adjusted amounts represent a 3.6% inflation-adjusted increase to both programs’ funding year 2023 annual caps. The E-Rate program funding cap for funding year 2024 is $4,940,076,139. The RHC program funding cap for funding year 2024 is $706,926,603.

When former librarian and author Jean Armour Polly first introduced the idea of having computers in libraries in the early 1980s, she was met with pushback. "People scoffed and said, 'Why would you go to a library to use a computer?'" she said. Even when the internet rolled around, many librarians felt they were supposed to be the sole gatekeepers of knowledge and information. "But I just knew it would be a wonderful thing. You know, school kids could use [computers] in schools, but what about the lifelong learners? And adults and seniors?" Polly said.

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to raise taxes through its Universal Service Fund—a regressive, hidden tax on consumers' phone bills that funds a series of unaccountable, bloated internet subsidy programs. Rather than giving the FCC carte blanche to expand its balance sheet, Congress must reform the USF's structural problems, reevaluate its component programs, and get the FCC's spending under control. Here is my plan to do that. 

The Biden-Harris Administration announced the approval of $20 million for digital connectivity projects in Pennsylvania under the US Department of the Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF). The award will fund Pennsylvania’s Digital Access Opportunity Grant program, through which the commonwealth will partner with community anchor institutions (CAIs) to increase access to laptops, tablets, desktop computers, and Wi-Fi devices to individuals in Pennsylvan

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society announced two new fellowship cohorts for our Marjorie & Charles Benton Opportunity Fund.  The Equitable Broadband in Urban America Research Group and the Policies, Plans, and Promises Research Group bring together researchers to work independently, but collaboratively on pressing broadband issues. We are excited about a research group model.