In this article, the authors draw on data gathered in the Public Libraries and the Internet 2004 study and use that data as part of their analysis of government policies that affect Internet connectivity in public libraries.
The identify six key policy issues: (1) the nature of sufficient bandwidth, (2) the perpetuation of the digital divide regarding Internet access in libraries, (3) the role of public libraries as access points for e-government services, (4) funding of Internet access, (5) the impact of filtering, and (6) the effect of homeland security legislation.
The authors examine changes from earlier studies in the series and discuss those changes in terms of policies that help facilitate increased access to digital technology, particularly the Internet. They go on to explore how policies are changing and discuss the impact of some of those changes.
Homeland security, particularly The Patriot Act, presents the threat of invasion of privacy and affects the kinds of records that libraries keep. Concern for patron privacy has led many libraries to cease keeping many types of usage records, records that “have a number of extremely important uses in libraries, from collection development to justification of funding” (135).
Even though this article goes way beyond the scope my project, it includes a wealth of material related to the whole topic of public libraries and Internet access, all of which affects my perception of my topic and its importance.
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