Assignment #1 -- Death Knell for Public Libraries??

All three articles touched on the necessity of libraries updating their format to keep pace with technological progress and the ubiquity of self-reliant users. Like political debaters, they didn't have trouble pointing out errors yet they didn't offer viable and applicable solutions for public libraries. In his paper, Clifford Lynch advocated that technology literacy should be taught as early as elementary school and that the teaching of traditional and technology literacy should be coordinated. I agree but he doesn't mention how this is to be done. Many rural and urban schools lack funds to install computer labs to accommodate such an extensive education. Budgets would need to include software licensing, modern technology, and the necessary updates.

Statements about schools without books and chairs often sound like liberal cliches but I did, indeed, teach in a school where students had to sit on art tables because we didn't have enough chairs and they weren't allowed to take the books home because there weren't enough to go around. Our computer lab was small because we couldn't afford licensing for more than 20 computers and in a K-8 school, that was enough for each class to visit the computer lab once a week and even then, students had to take turns.

In fact, the only article that addressed the digital divide was the OCLC report: "Far from being young kids with little money in their pockets...the survey found that blog readers are older and richer than many people suppose."

Although the UNLV was successful in adopting a new format, it should be remembered that it was a university library and costs can be offset by tuition and supplemental grants. So even then, it is only readily available to people who can afford college tuition.

Public libraries serve in a different capacity, the majority of them working as smaller, satellite branches to serve individual communities. Patrons are usually those who can't afford their own computers or don't have access to modern research and information systems. So, where does the money come for computer updates, software licensing, and classes to teach people how to use the technology? Donations have dipped in the last several years and even then, most of that funding is directed to teen programming and adult literacy. Even with the increase of IMLS grants, funds are woefully inadequate to accommodate the long-term, continuous commitment necessary as demonstrated in Jason Vaughan's piece about the Lied Library.

I don't want to be a cynical educator and proclaim that it shouldn't be done because we can't afford it and leave it at that. I am all for closing the digital divide and giving underrepresented groups in rural and urban school systems the skills they need to compete. But since so many district funding systems are based on property tax, I would like to know how struggling schools will cope.

Technology is produced and introduced at a break-neck speed. Ten years ago, individual laptops in college were rare and now everyone has one. Cell phones were gigantic and unaffordable and now even 3rd graders are texting each other during recess but even this disbursement is throughout a certain economic class. Will there ever be a reconciliation of the digital divide, or will public institutions and certain economic classes always be at a disadvantage? What good is promoting the universal, public access that technology advocates if, in reality, not everyone has access to it?