The Information Use Management & Policy Institute at Florida State University recently released the latest in a series of studies on public libraries in the US & network access. They’ve done these studies approximately every 2 years since 1994. This one was funded by the Gates Foundation & the ALA.
Major findings:
- 99.6% of public library outlets in the United States are connected to the Internet.
- 98.9% of public library outlets with a connection to the Internet provide public access to the Internet.
- Public library outlets, on average, provide 10.4 public access workstations within the library.
Results are broken down by library, library system, state, & state system. Some North Carolina-specific findings:
- The majority of state library systems did not receive any funding from federal, state, or county sources for Internet-related technology. For those that did receive funding, NC was among those that saw the largest decreases from all 3 sources.
- The good news is that NC was one of the fortunate states that are able to even have technology upgrade schedules. The bad news is that NC is one of the states least able to follow the set schedule.