Background on the State of Public Libraries

Public libraries hold many responsibilities within their communities. They are free, non-commercial, and neutral spaces for seeking resources and information, whether for school, work, personal enrichment, or skills development.¹ In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey on the role of libraries, 65 percent of respondents said closing their local public library would have a major impact on their community.² Thirty-seven percent with incomes lower than $30,000 a year said a library closure would have a big impact on them personally.³ And, according to the Pew study, lower-income, Black, and Hispanic Americans, were more likely to say that “closing their local public library would have a major impact on them or their family.”⁴

Long before the arrival of the coronavirus, libraries were seen as key sources of information about health and jobs—two topics that the pandemic and its economic repercussions have brought front and center. The 2015 Pew survey showed that among those who used a library’s computers, internet connections, or Wi-Fi, 42 percent were using those tools for health-related searches,⁵ whether to seek out information about troubling new diagnoses or to find books and support groups on how to help loved ones battling depression or other health issues. Libraries are also key sources of support for community members looking for work, since they offer a place to search the job market online, get assistance in filling out applications, and update computer and technology skills.⁶

Libraries are seen as key sources of information about health and jobs—two topics that the pandemic and its economic repercussions have brought front and center.

As journalist Linda Poon wrote in a Bloomberg CityLab article last year: “public libraries are, in fact, one of the last free spaces in the U.S. where vulnerable populations can seek out unemployment assistance, internet and computer access, and daytime shelter from the streets; for some, they’re also de facto child-care centers.”⁷ They are also seen as a critical part of the infrastructure necessary to help people avoid falling for misinformation and disinformation. Libraries and their staff have a reputation for helping people “decide what information they can trust,” according to 65 percent of respondents in the Pew study.⁸

But libraries have also been facing existential challenges over the past few decades. The internet and its never-ending stream of digital media, available via smartphones at any time anywhere, have altered the way people read and gather information. The arrival of Amazon.com gave higher-income Americans the ability to order books that arrive in 24 hours or that immediately appear on a tablet or e-reader. Pew data on library visitation from 2012 to 2015 (the only time period in which comparable national data is available on this question) raised concerns that the share of Americans using public libraries “has ebbed somewhat.”⁹

Some institutions themselves have been pushing to rectify the generational harms of the public library’s segregated history, including but not limited to the restrictions of the Jim Crow era designed to exclude Black people from using library facilities.¹⁰ Librarians have pushed to develop modern makerspaces, to renovate children’s areas to be more inviting and conducive to active play-based learning, and to work more intentionally at becoming relevant places for immigrants, low-income families, and people of color.¹¹ Public libraries have also been working to shake the stereotype that they are somber, antiquated facilities where people worry about being “shushed.” ALA’s Intersections blog (tagline: “a blog on diversity, literacy, and outreach”) published a call in 2019 for an improved definition of outreach and much more attention to outreach across the library field. As the authors wrote, “we tend to focus on our brick and mortar buildings: we build collections for our buildings; we hire staff for the buildings; we create programs for within our buildings; and we design our policies and procedures for our buildings. These big-ticket items need to be reworked a little—or a lot—to translate well in Outreach.”¹²

Access to online resources offered by a public library fundamentally depends on whether or not people are adequately connected to the internet. Having a smartphone is often not enough.

That call for less of a focus on buildings was prescient, given that a quarter of a year later the pandemic would lead libraries to close those buildings or drastically reduce how many people could enter at one time. Libraries would need to emphasize their digital technologies and online resources to retain, recruit, and support their patrons. Those technologies include online catalogs that enable people to search for books to be picked up curbside; the apps and other software programs that enable people to borrow ebooks and immediately read them on their devices; virtual programming like story times over Facebook Live; and online exhibits (or links to exhibits) of digitized artwork, manuscripts, or photographs.

Yet access to online resources offered by a public library fundamentally depends on whether or not people are adequately connected to the internet. Having a smartphone is often not enough. Access may be unreliable, and taking part in virtual events or online trainings or downloading large files may lead users to exceed the monthly data limits in their mobile plans.¹³ More than 77 million people in the U.S. lack an adequate home internet connection; they may have no internet access at all or rely exclusively on a connection through their smartphone and mobile wireless plan.¹⁴ A disproportionate number of them are older Americans or veterans, are Native American, Black, or Hispanic, or live in low-income households and are members of communities already marginalized and under-resourced.¹⁵ Families of color are hit particularly hard. One out of every three Black, Latinx, and American Indian/Alaska Native households with children do not have high-speed home internet access.¹⁶

Improving broadband access and broadband capacity at home is essential to ensuring that people can access online and digital resources.¹⁷ How can policymakers make headway in improving home broadband access? First, they should consider cost.

Cost is one of the major barriers to getting people connected, and with the high average price of internet service in the United States, low-income households are particularly vulnerable to falling on the wrong side of the digital divide. In its annually published reports on the state of broadband deployment in the country, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has found that, on average, the proportion of the population with access to different speeds of service is highest in counties with the highest median household income and the lowest poverty rate.¹⁸ A study from early 2019 found that while 92 percent of U.S. adults with an annual income greater than $75,000 have home broadband service, only 56 percent of adults making less than $30,000 are home broadband users.¹⁹ There is a clear causal relation between income level and cost of service—in that survey, 51 percent of six million U.S. households with annual incomes under $25,000 did not have home internet because it was too expensive.²⁰

The federal Lifeline program could help. But the program’s current subsidy is paltry; it currently offers a $9.25 monthly subsidy to qualifying households, which can use the subsidy towards telephone service, a home internet subscription, or a bundled wireless phone and data plan.²¹ This covers only 14 percent of average monthly costs for fixed home internet service in the United States.²² A household is restricted to just one subsidy, even if multiple eligible individuals live there.

In December 2020, recognizing the dire need to get more people connected during the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress allocated $3.2 billion for the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, designed to help get low-income and vulnerable households online during the ongoing crisis. The program subsidized low-income households up to $50 per month for broadband service, and it also expanded the criteria for eligibility to include those on the National School Breakfast Program/Lunch Program, those experiencing COVID-related loss of income, and federal Pell Grant recipients.

Lowering the cost of service would help too. Advertised monthly prices are just the start of what consumers have to pay for internet service. Service providers also charge activation, installation, equipment, and contract termination fees that can sometimes add up to 1,000 percent more to the advertised price per month.²³ These kinds of hidden fees not only produce higher monthly bills, but they make it more difficult for people to comparison-shop for the best deals. More transparency is needed. Disclosing all the costs of broadband internet plans—like the format of a nutrition label, an idea floated in Slate in December 2020—will not only help consumers better understand their monthly bill, but also make it more difficult for companies to charge consumers hidden fees concealed in hard-to-find terms and conditions pages.²⁴

Another lever that can lower the cost of broadband service is allowing new entrants to the marketplace. Research demonstrates that municipal networks deliver some of the most affordable and fastest internet service in the U.S.²⁵ However, in at least 20 states, municipal networks are not fully permitted.