This website – from the Information Policy & Access Center (iPAC) in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland – supports public libraries in their mission to provide Internet access and related content and services to people and their communities. As more people rely on the public library for Internet access and training for education, job-seeking, interactions with government, communication, and entertainment, this site serves as a source for findings, data, reports, and publications devoted to public libraries and their involvement with and use of the Internet. This content can help libraries, decision makers, policy makers, and others.

Public Libraries and the Internet Surveys

U.S. public libraries were early adopters of the Internet. Since 1994, 13 national surveys that track the use of and issues associated with public library Internet connectivity have been conducted. Funded over the years by the American Library Assocation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, the national surveys provide longitudinal data that track trends in public access computing and Internet access provided by public libraries to the communities that they serve.

Beginning in 2006, the national Public Libraries and the Internet series of surveys became part of the larger Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study funded by the American Library Association and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The Information Policy & Access Center manages the national public library survey portion of the larger study.

Findings from the national survey demonstrate that public libraries provide a wide range of Internet-enabled services and resources to their communities:

• Public access computers
• Broadband connectivity, including wireless (wi-fi) access;
• Public access computers;
• Broadband connectivity, including wireless (wi-fi) access;
• Instructional programs on computer and Internet use, as well as a range of online content such as databases, health information, and government programs;
• Online resources;
• Assistance in seeking employment;
• Assistance with E-government transactions; and
• Access to secondary and higher education coursework

In many cases, the public library is the only free public computing and Internet access provider within a community.

The Public Libraries and the Internet surveys, now the Public Library Funding & Technology Access surveys, provide longitudinal data regarding the Internet-enabled services and resources that public libraries offer their communities.

Survey Methodology

The 2010-2011 survey resides within a larger public library study regarding public access technology use and funding. In this context, the survey employed a multi-approach sampling strategy to meet the following objectives:

• Provide outlet (branch)-level national data regarding public library Internet connectivity and use;
• Provide outlet (branch)-level state data (including the District of Columbia) regarding public library Internet connectivity and use; and
• Provide system (administrative)-level data (including the District of Columbia) regarding E-rate use and library operating and technology funding and expenditures.

The survey had the additional objectives of obtaining data to conduct analysis using the variables of metropolitan status (urban, suburban or rural). The survey also included assessment questions for selected public libraries recipients of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Opportunity Online hardware and broadband grants.

The survey asked respondents to answer questions about specific library outlets and about the library system to which each respondent outlet belonged. Respondents completed the survey between September 2010 and November 2010. The survey received a total of 5,462 responses for a response rate of 86.5%. Another 2,971 Opportunity Online hardware and broadband grant library responses were added for a total of 8,433 responses for analysis purposes.

The high survey response rate and representativeness of responses demonstrate the high quality of the survey data and the ability to generalize to the public library population.