Public Library Internet Services and the Digital Divide PDF Download

Author: Charles R. McClure
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Digital divide
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Author: Jessamyn C. West
Publisher: Libraries Unlimited
ISBN: 9781598844535
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Teaching novice computer users, including seniors and individuals with disabilities such as low vision or motor skills, how to do what they want and need to do online is a formidable challenge for library staff. Part inspirational, part practical Without a/the Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide is a summary of techniques, approaches, and skills that will help librarians meet this challenge.||Jessamyn C. West's experience as a librarian is deeply immersed in technology culture, yet living in rural America makes her uniquely qualified to write this book. Taking a big-picture approach to the subject, she demystifies and simplifies tech training for the busy librarian, providing an easy-to-use handbook full of techniques that can be used with all of a library's many populations. As an added bonus, she also examines the players in the library technology arena to offer firsthand reports on what works, what doesn't, and what's next.

Author: Joan Coachman Durrance
Publisher: American Library Association
ISBN: 9780838908235
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
"Presents the highlights of a 1998-2000 IMLS National Leadership Grant, 'Help-seeking in an electronic world: the role of the public library in helping citizens obtain community information over the Internet'" -- p. ii.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Author: Yunfei Du
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This valuable book shows how to get your community behind your library by making it an essential part of community life and demonstrating its benefit to all members of the community. Evolving technologies and the changing social landscape have put pressure on public libraries to shift their service values and methods in order to maintain funding opportunities. The challenge is substantial: library managers today must adopt a new mindset in order to perform a broad spectrum of activities and attract new users who are not traditional library patrons. Small Libraries, Big Impact: How to Better Serve Your Community in the Digital Age helps readers to meet the challenge of serving diverse users via a community-centered library. Based on an intensive review of literature on serving library users in smaller libraries as well as the author's own research findings gained from interviewing 55 library directors, this book provides conceptual and practical tools for serving 21st-century users, gaining wider community support, programming dynamic events, and planning rewarding technology learning. Beyond supplying actionable advice, the book will also review relevant concepts and theoretical frameworks, such as community outreach and partnership, social justice and social inclusion, technology and social transition, cultural diversity and the digital divide, entrepreneurship, outreach, best practices for marketing libraries, and library space design.

Author: Yang Wang (M.A. in radio-television-film)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
The internet has grown rapidly with the global development of information communication technologies. But it also creates a digital divide in disadvantaged communities such as those found in ethnic minority neighborhoods. Historically, public libraries provide open and free access to information, and they have long been a critical resource to ethnic communities. More recently, they have become more than a community center, expanding into becoming a technology hub, especially for internet use. Public libraries could play a positive role in enhancing low-income ethnic communities' internet use and narrowing the digital divide. This research explores library roles in countering the digital divides for ethnic communities in New York; it specifically (1) identifies differences in internet usage between Chinese and Hispanic immigrant patrons of public libraries in New York City; (2) examines the role of the public library as a local agency for promoting ethnic communities' internet use and narrowing of the digital divide. Accordingly, this research focuses on two ethnic groups, Chinese and Hispanic, in New York City's three boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island, who patronize the local branch of their public library. Based on the findings from this sample, race in and of itself did not play a significant role for either utilization or individuals' capability of using the internet. However, these different ethnic communities demonstrated unique internet-use characteristics and patterns that together may outline how ethnic communities approach libraries and therefore, in turn, how libraries might remediate digital inequities. Age, education, and the number of internet users at home influenced internet use patterns for these two ethnic communities. Additionally, this research, through measurements on both Internet utilization and capability scales, reaffirms that the public library is a positive agent in promoting internet use among ethnic communities. Finally, this project offers libraries specific, micro-level policy suggestions based on the internet-use patterns of these two ethnic communities to better meet local needs, especially for those frontline librarians or staff working with patrons. It also intends to serve as a model for studying other ethnic groups and areas while raising the library's visibility regarding not only internet use but also acculturation via the bonds formed among ethnic communities.

Author: Lauren Comito
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538122197
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
How can libraries ensure that patrons from all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds have access to advanced technology training and hardware? Everyone knows libraries provide access to computers and the internet for day to day use, but many libraries have gone beyond those basic services. Makerspaces and advanced tech training are often not equitably distributed between differing communities. The digital divide is still very real, and by not providing equal access to maker spaces and other similar services libraries may be unintentionally contributing to that divide. This book examines how the unequal distribution of resources between communities can limit access to emerging technologies. Chapters from librarians across the country give real world examples of libraries going the extra mile to bring more than just email access to their communities, regardless of economic status or geographic distribution. You’ll find practical plans put forward by working professionals who have sought pragmatic solutions to issues of digital literacy. Access is a through line in this work as people look at the larger ideas of access as inclusive of training, diverse technologies, and the time and space to make genuine growth in tech literacy. Chapters include: working with immigrants, low cost laptops for library use, deep dives into the underpinnings of the maker movement, and developing community-focused technology training. After reading this book, librarians should have practical ideas to address the issue of equity in access to emerging technologies in their own communities.

Author: United States. National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Digital divide
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description

Author: John Carlo Bertot Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1591587778
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book is a timely and detailed exploration of the impact and issues of the Internet in public libraries and their implications for society, policy, and professional practice. Public Libraries and the Internet: Roles, Perspectives, and Implications explores the impact of the Internet and the expansion of the networked environment on U.S. public libraries through more than a dozen essays written by leading scholars and administrators. Notwithstanding the far-reaching changes wrought by the Internet, this is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive exploration of the subject over time and across areas of practice. This wide-ranging volume, edited by the authors of several national studies tracking the use and involvement of public libraries with the Internet since 1994, offers both description and assessment. It discusses the ways in which the roles and services of public libraries have changed as a result of the Internet and offers a perspective on the meaning and impact of these changes. Perhaps most critically, it also suggests possible futures and opportunities as public libraries continue to evolve in this networked environment.

Author: Andromeda Yelton
Publisher: American Library Association
ISBN: 0838992374
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
In this issue of Library Technology Reports, Andromeda Yelton shows how libraries can build on the breadth of this population to help bridge the digital divide and provide even greater access to information. Yelton breaks down the demographics of mobile internet users, provides examples of how different libraries are reaching out to these...