Podcasting. Readings. LibGuides. Advice. Pathfinder. Research. Homepage. Welcome to my submission for LS 531 Final Project: Academic Library Profile Portfolio! The Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center is the library at the University of Florida, Fredric G. Levin College of Law. The Levin College of Law was founded in 1909. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. A variety of courses of study are available to students at Levin. Juris Doctor degreeCertificate Programs in: Environmental and Land Use Law Estates and Trusts Practice Family LawIntellectual Property Law International and Comparative Law Joint J.D. Biography of Gov. Grant Funding - United States Libraries - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
United States Libraries - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Foundation Fact Sheet Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
Grantmaking Areas We also have a small Charitable Sector Support initiative. Locations Headquarters – Seattle, Washington East Coast Office – Washington, D.C. Leadership Bill Gates, Co-chair Melinda Gates, Co-chair William H. Statistics Geographic Reach The foundation supports grantees in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Connectivity funds for Rural Libraries CTLS, Inc. FYI from Timothy Owens, President of Association for Rural & Small Libraries The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided $2.5 billion to the Rural Utility Service to promote broadband deployment in rural areas.
RUS established the Broadband Incentives Program (BIP) and set out two major application windows for this funding. Applications for the first round were filed in August, 2009, and the second round in March, 2010. In addition, the RUS established three much smaller funding programs to address particular needs. Rural Library Program: The RUS is making $2 million available for a Rural Library Program. A. B. C. On the other hand, if a library is eligible and meets all the criteria above, then the program could be quite valuable, as it will fund a range of broadband-related expenses which include: Broadband Connection: The grant will fund the costs of providing a broadband connection to the rural library. Rural Satellite Program: Technical Assistance Program: BroadbandUSA. E-Rate Program Revisions To Promote Faster Internet (Updated)
FCCs plans to modernize E-rate to create more opportunities for libraries | District Dispatch. The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) and the Library & Information Technology Association (LITA) are now soliciting submissions for the best library practices using cutting-edge technology. A library patron passes by a Contra Costa County Library “Snap and Go” poster. The library was recognized earlier this year for its cutting-edge technologies. “We want to showcase libraries that are serving their communities with novel and innovative methods and provide the library community with some successful models for delivering quality library service in new ways,” said Patty Saidenberg, chair of the Cutting-edge Technology in Library Services selection committee. Last year, four libraries were cited for their work: Contra Costa County Library in Pleasant Hill, Calif., New Canaan High School Library in New Canaan, Conn., New York Public Library in New York, and Scottsdale Public Library in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Amazon Kindles Connect Rural Libraries to Digital World. Georgetown County, S.C., isn't known as a bustling hub of innovation. But as the county's library system adopts new technology, residents can connect to a world beyond their rural community. The Amazon Kindle, the popular e-book reader, is the latest tool made available at Georgetown County Library, thanks to a national Library Services and Technology Act grant. With the $25,000 grant, matched by the libraries, the county acquired 25 Kindles for onsite use and about $2,500 worth of e-books. "A library's mission is to preserve information and make that information available to the public," said Dwight McInvaill, director of the Georgetown County Library.
Across the country in the past decade, the marriage between technology and libraries has matured with the rise of interactive gaming and hands-on digital tools. View Full Story. Study: Public libraries challenged to meet patron needs for high-speed internet access. Contact: Larra Clark Project Manager 312-280-2129 lclark@ala.org For release May 5, 2009 10 a.m. EDT (CHICAGO) With growing demand for public Internet services and Wi-fi access, nearly 60 percent of U.S. public libraries report Internet connection speeds are insufficient to meet patron demand at some point in the day, according to the 2008-2009 "As more and more people turn to their public libraries for critical access to online information and services, the bandwidth needed to provide these services increases rapidly," said American Library Association (ALA) President Jim Rettig. Nationally one in five libraries report connection speeds less than 1.5 Mbps (T1), and the disparity between urban libraries and their rural counterparts is pronounced.
The nature of how information is delivered and shared is changing. Libraries identify cost and availability as the key issues in their ability to improve public access Internet connectivity. USDA awards funds to 129 rural libraries in 30 states Legislative Panel of the Maryland Library Association. Summary of Findings | Pew Internet & American Life Project. Home broadband adoption stood at 63% of adult Americans as of April 2009, up from 55% in May, 2008. The latest findings of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project mark a departure from the stagnation in home high-speed adoption rates that had prevailed from December, 2007 through December, 2008.
During that period, Project surveys found that home broadband penetration remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%. The greatest growth in broadband adoption in the past year has taken place among population subgroups which have below average usage rates. Among them: Senior citizens: Broadband usage among adults ages 65 or older grew from 19% in May, 2008 to 30% in April, 2009. Overall, respondents reporting that they live in homes with annual household incomes below $30,000 experienced a 34% growth in home broadband adoption from 2008 to 2009. Population subgroups that have above average usage rates saw more modest increases during this time period.
Demographic differences in broadband adoption | Pew Internet & American Life Project. Demographic differences in broadband adoption As we did in our 2008 report on home broadband adoption, this report assesses barriers to broadband adoption through questions to dial-up users and non-internet users about why they either do not have broadband or lack internet access. At a very broad level, there are clear demographic differences between broadband, dial-up, and non-internet users, as the following table demonstrates.
Relative to broadband users, dial-up users are older, have lower incomes, have lower levels of educational attainment, are more likely to be African American, and more likely to live in rural areas. For non-internet users, these same factors are also relevant, but in much more pronounced ways. A notable demographic difference in comparing dial-up with non-users is gender: dial-up users are more likely to be male and non-users more likely to be female. Several of the factors common to non-broadband use are related. How many dial-up users want broadband? Rural US Internet: not great, but truly poor in the South. The many blessings of rural life generally need to be set against one huge drawback: bad Internet connections.
Both urban and rural Internet use have soared in the US over the last few years, but some new number-crunching from the US Department of Agriculture puts a number on the urban/rural gap: 9.3 percent. 72.6 percent of urban Americans use the Internet somewhere (though not necessarily at home), but among rural residents that number falls to 63.3 percent. The reasons for the discrepancy aren't hard to come by; as the USDA's "Rural Broadband At A Glance 2009" suggests, the difference is likely chalked up to "the higher cost and limited availability of broadband Internet in rural areas. " But despite the higher cost and lower availability in all rural areas, Internet access is surprisingly variable when you break down the country by geography. For instance, Internet usage at home is 61.7 percent in the urban South, a number actually on par with the rural Northeast (61 percent).
Obamas chief scientist: National Broadband needs private money - President Brack Obama, National Broadband Plan, National Broadband Network (NBN), John Holdren. US President Obama’s top science and technology advisor, John Holdren, has claimed a national broadband plan is an important development. But he added that significant private investment was needed to get it done.
“I am convinced [broadband] would be of benefit in many different ways,” he said. “There would be an improvement in the productivity of the science and engineering enterprises but I can’t say by how much and I don’t know if anybody can.” Holdren also said national broadband would boost the populations and productivity levels of rural and regional areas, but said he was unable to provide quantitative estimates as it wasn’t his field of expertise. “I would guess it is [worth billions of dollars] because the leverage is very substantial,” he claimed. But the White House advisor also said the best solution in this economic climate was to pursue a national broadband plan without Governments spending large amounts of money. Www.gatesfoundation.org/atla/Pages/rural-libraries-on-boats-in-bangladesh.aspx. We focus our efforts in four areas that we believe will have the greatest impact. Technology Access in Libraries Our primary focus is on providing technology access in public libraries throughout entire countries—with a focus on developing and transitioning countries as well as a continued commitment to U.S. libraries.
We provide multi-year support to countries with a high need for public access to information and a readiness to implement technology access in public libraries. Our grants fund efforts to understand local technology needs, purchase equipment for libraries, train library staff, and help libraries build public support for long-term funding. High school students using computers at a public library in Constanta, Romania. In addition to the United States, our work to date has supported efforts in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Botswana, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Moldova, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Research and Innovation Training and Leadership. RUPRI. Schools and Libraries Program - USAC. Books for the People. Libraries set up to serve TVA dam builders enriched the lives of countless people in remote communities across the TVA region Today when folks check out a copy of the latest John Grisham novel at the local library, they’re not likely to thank their power company for anything but the reading lights. But when thousands of people in rural regions of the Tennessee Valley region borrowed their first books, it was from a librarian employed by TVA. TVA didn’t set out to bring libraries to the people. But in the course of bringing them electric power, it found that the one happened to follow the other.
After TVA’s inception in 1933, it sent armies of workers into remote areas to build a power system. Counties with populations in the thousands had no railroad service, no newspaper, no radio station. If TVA employees were to live happily and productively in such areas for a year or two, it seemed clear that something would have to change. In 1934 TVA found just the woman to take on the challenge. Search. The Rural Library Project. Library outreach: addressing Utah's Digital Divide. Rural Review. Rural Library Services Get $7.2 Million in Stimulus Funds. Tennessee Library Association: TL v60n3: Rural Library Professionals as Change Agents in the 21st Century. Presented at the 2010 TLA Annual Conference Introduction The University of Tennessee’s School of Information Sciences ( was recently awarded a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program ( for $567,660 to tackle lagging information technology literacy in rural libraries in the Southern and Central Appalachians.
Led by principal investigator Dr. Bharat Mehra and co-PIs Drs. Clinch-Powell Regional Library, Clinton, Tennessee ( Susan Simmons, Director. The objective of collaborating with the grant partners and others is to develop and offer the ITRL students a relevant coursework tailored for a specialization in Information Technology and Rural Librarianship. Phase 1 (October 2009 – February 2010): Recruitment of the ITRL Students According to UT SIS Director Dr. Phase 4 (Ongoing from May 2010): Mentoring.