Libraries have become a broadband lifeline for students

I live in a suburb of Los Angeles and I occasionally do work at a local library branch. I overhear a lot of the patrons&#x27; conversations at the reference desk. It&#x27;s astounding how much people still struggle to find quality information in &quot;the information age&quot;. It&#x27;s no surprise given the rise of poorly vetted articles spread on social media.<p>I realize how much of a role librarians can play in guiding people towards more reliable information sources. The key takeaway from the article shared is that libraries are still effective places for people to build self-reliance with regard to information seeking. It&#x27;s an important skill that doesn&#x27;t always get taught in schools for whatever reason.

Sadly though, Trumps budget would completely eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This would be devastating for library services cross the country.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ala.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;2017&#x2F;03&#x2F;president-s-budget-proposal-eliminate-federal-library-funding" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ala.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;2017&#x2F;03&#x2F;president-s-b...</a>

I volunteered at my local library and they were struggling at times in terms of man power. I think they had too much responsibility but the budget of someone who handles books only. Books, Internet, Movies and music, Free lunch for kids under 18, Some computer classes occasionally, Meeting areas for adults, Club activities for kids, Occasionally local cops organized &quot;Pokemon Go with an Officer&quot;, magazines, subscription to many newspapers, etc etc. Most people don&#x27;t think of volunteering in libraries either. They were back logged with shelving out the books that hadn&#x27;t been checked out in a while. Without doing this, they can&#x27;t really keep getting new books. Trying to manage the CD&#x2F;DVD is also more hassle than you think. You have to regularly clean it and get rid of the ones thats too damaged. My college library is decent too. Nothing like the public one. Especially considering the college one probably is better funded. A lot of people from a lot of different age group depend on the library for the internet though.

If you haven&#x27;t been near your public library&#x27;s internet area for a while, you should go--it is an eye opener to see not only that they are full to capacity, but also that there is often a wait list involved.

Certainly rings true here.<p>Anecdote: My cousin lives in a rural area and is enrolled in college while working. His only internet at home is satellite, so to do his online homework he has to drive to the library to use the wifi.

Once we had a dream of sharing wifi among each other. What happened to that?

Ironically we go to the library much less now that its easy to borrow ebooks with kindle and reading apps. overdrive is great. I was starting to see a future without libraries.

I&#x27;d love for libraries to get involved more in tech. I think they are really the ideal public sponsored unit to move quickly and break things in a way that school&#x27;s aren&#x27;t.<p>I have a nephew who is 2.5 with 2 uncles involved in tech and his dad writes some code part time. We&#x27;ve already talked about getting him into programming and electronics.<p>As technical skills become more and more important I worry that the school system just isn&#x27;t fast enough to adapt and there is going to be a massive inequality between kids who have relative&#x2F;parents who encourage the development of these skills and those who don&#x27;t.

My local library has 250mbs of fiber going to it. Nothing amazing in the days of gigabit but it&#x27;s by far the best free internet access you can get. However, they have it locked down to just web traffic. You can&#x27;t use GitHub, download any software, SSH into a server...