{"id":491,"date":"2011-12-05T18:27:44","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T22:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acohen.com\/blog\/?p=491"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:42:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:42:49","slug":"the-new-digital-divide-library-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acohen.com\/blog\/the-new-digital-divide-library-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Digital Divide: Library Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An excellent opinion article by Susan P. Crawford, &#8220;The New Digital Divide&#8221; provides a valid reason why Public Libraries, Special and Academic Libraries provide a value in the digital age. For the majority of citizen&#8217;s, the only access they have to medical, law, jobs and skills is through a cell phone.  The &#8220;poor and working class &#8211; either cannot afford access or use restricted wireless access as their only connection to the Internet.&#8221; Indeed, the &#8220;library as place&#8221; can offer connection speeds as high as Docsis 2.0 and 3.0 or 105 megabits per second, fast enough to download a music album in three seconds. The library can offer high speed connections when wireless is too slow.  <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewinternet.org\">Pew Internet and American Life Project<\/a> recently came out with a study that shows how the divide is affecting economic growth.  According to the study, almost 25% of Americans do not have unrestricted access to the Internet.  However, roughly 44% of lower income families have some kind of Smart Phones.  <\/p>\n<p>The new digital divide can be combated with a new learning center or library environment.  The provision of library internet access will enable the community to use real-time video conferencing and virtual classrooms.  It can support job creation, higher quality healthcare, better skills and virtual diplomas.  The &#8220;library as place&#8221; is a way to share our resources and build a better future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An excellent opinion article by Susan P. Crawford, &#8220;The New Digital Divide&#8221; provides a valid reason why Public Libraries, Special and Academic Libraries provide a value in the digital age.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,10,81,521,225,146],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library-planning-research","tag-library-as-place","tag-library-design","tag-library-planning","tag-space-planning","tag-value-library","tag-value-of-library"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>library user analysis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1, noarchive\" \/>\n<link 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