Library hopes to lend out Internet via Wi-Fi hotspots
Program would let patrons check out a device that connects to web
Amid paperback copies of romance novels and how-to manuals, the Toronto Public Library would like to see something else available for checkout in 2016: the Internet.
Lendable Wi-Fi hotspots are already being experimented in cities such as New York and Chicago, and are billed as a way to bridge the digital divide in urban centres.
City librarian Vickery Bowles said the Toronto library has included $100,000 in its 2016 operating budget for lendable Internet at branches located in neighbourhood improvement areas, where there are larger numbers of people who might need the service.
She feels Internet access has become an essential part of the services libraries should provide.
“People who lack broadband Internet access at home, they’re really at a disadvantage when it comes to employment, looking for a job or access to government services and education,” Bowles said.
Modern libraries have already become hubs for free Internet. A lineup of people waiting to polish their resumés, check emails or even fill out government forms online has become a fixture at many branches.
The Toronto Public Library would figure out the details after funding is approved by council. But the idea is to let patrons check out a physical device that can provide free Wi-Fi for whatever device they have.
The library is already seeking private donors who could supplement the city funding, Bowles said.
Andrea Saenz, first deputy commissioner at the Chicago Public Library, said that under a pilot project that started this year, librarians in the Windy City have lent out about 700 devices at seven branches, in neighbourhoods where people are most likely not to have Internet access at home.
The point is to bring people who have been left in the digital dark into the online conversation.
“We’re missing those voices, and we’re missing those people, those citizens as engaged actors online,” she said.
The project has been met with lots of enthusiasm, but staff are still figuring out who is borrowing the devices and for what purpose, surveying people when they return the hotspots.
“I would say the jury is still out. We don’t have a ton of data back,” Saenz said, adding there are safeguards built in, allowing the library to turn the devices off if people don’t return them.
Charity Kittler, library hotspot program manager at the New York Public Library, said the idea for its Wi-Fi project came to the president of the library when he was walking around the Bronx one day and noticed a crowd of people hanging around outside a closed library branch, using the Wi-Fi bleed from the building.
"People who lack broadband Internet access at home, they’re really at a disadvantage when it comes to employment . . . or access to government services and education." VICKERY BOWLES CITY LIBRARIAN
“So it’s not just that our libraries are packed during the day. Even after the libraries close, people are still there because it’s one of the few places you can get free Wi-Fi,” Kittler said.
In that city, where 27 per cent of residents do not have broadband Internet access at home, according to city statistics, the hotspots are a hot commodity.
“It’s not just that you’re not able to access the Internet if you don’t have it at home, it’s that the things you used to be able to do in person are now only online,” Kittler said.
The biggest complaint, she said, is that the Internet is not fast enough, and that people want to use the devices for longer, even though patrons have been able to keep them from up to a year.
As for less educational uses, Kittler said the library doesn’t judge.
“We try to tell them upfront, we don’t recommend marathoning Game of Thrones, simply because your Internet will then slow down afterwards,” she said with a laugh.