You are connected to event: WebJunction030612 Themes: Custom High Contrast Terminal Notepad Green & Gold Sunrise Default Font Size: 14 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60 72 84 96 Font Family: Arial Comic Courier New Helvetica Tahoma Trebuchet Verdana Background: Black Dark Blue Blue Green Dark Cyan Lime Aqua Olive Gray Dark Red Silver Red Fuchsia Yellow White Text Color: Black Dark Blue Blue Green Dark Cyan Lime Aqua Olive Gray Dark Red Silver Red Fuchsia Yellow White Scroll: . . . . . >> Jennifer: I will mention if you do have audio issues that cannot be solved using your computer speakers or headphones, know you may join by telephone. Not everyone has a phone next to their work station where they might be joining, but if you do encounter audio difficulties, you can join by phone as well. And, again, captions are available for today's session in the media viewer. And you may minimize any of those windows at right. So, again, if chat does become overwhelming to you, you -- you can minimize that window know that we will archive the chat and, yes, all of the questions, the full hour will be archived as Betha said. Your questions -- your answers to your questions at the end of the session will be a part of that archive. So, we are at the top of the hour. I would like to take this moment to remind folks to please post your technical questions to that Q and A panel. And if you do end up outside of the room, just a note that the email I sent you also has this WebEx support number and today's event number so that you can provide that for additional support. My name is Jennifer Peterson. I'm thrilled to have you here today. I'm joined by Betha Gutsche. I will provide support for today's session and Betha will moderate and host today's session and I'm going to actually just quickly also thank all of our Webjunction library, state library partners who have made this opportunity free for all of you to attend. Special thanks for those of you that are joining from our state library communities, and also a special thanks today to IMLS, who is actually joining us for today's session, but also for your great support in our efforts towards digital inclusion. And now I'm going to go ahead and have Betha get us started with introductions. >> Betha: Welcome everybody. I think this is an exciting topic. In a spirit that it takes a community to bridge the digital divide, we are honored who have guest speakers each representing a different sort of community involved in digital inclusion. From the library world, we have Mary Chute, who is director -- the deputy director for libraries at IMLS, otherwise the institute of museum and library services, and prior to that, she was involved in digital initiatives as the director and state libraryian for the Delaware division of libraries. We have Ron Carlee, chief operating officer at international city county management association, known as ICMA. He is also -- he is a very busy person because he is adjunct professor of public policy and public administration at George Washington university. And zooming in to the more local community view, we have David Keyes, the community technology program manager at the city of Seattle. On the advisory board of Washington State Community Connect Network, working with a variety of community organizations public and private to increase digital inclusion. We are favored in the state of Washington. Before we -- oh, I see. Excuse me while I deal with my technology. Before we dive in to hearing from our guests, I want to take just a few minutes to consider the landscape of the digital divide and digital inclusion. The internet is changing the world. There is really no room for debate around that. There are new opportunities opening up for everyone around the world, through economic opportunities, access to all kinds of information, government services, education is going online, health information online. But it also comes with increased demands for -- increased levels of technical savvy, especially in the work force, and just being able to filter and access information. And then there is also the amazing phenomenon of the global social connections. The image here is a map of network connections around the globe. And it is strikingly similar to maps of neural networks in the human brain. Imagine -- very exciting time, but as writer William Gibson famously said awhile back, the future is already here. It is just not evenly distributed. This is still so true in the year 2012, where according to the February 2011 digital nation report from NTIA, national telecommunications and information administration, almost one third of American households still lack a broadband connection. To put it another way, about 100 million individuals still lack broadband access. It seems kind of amazing. I think we like to think of the United States as being in the forefront of technology. That is not so true when it comes to broadband access. If anyone would like to guess what country ranks number 1 in the percentage of households with broadband access, go ahead and enter your guesses into the chat window. I will tell you that the United States ranks 14th in percentage of households with broadband access, and 15th in wired broadband prescriptions per 100 residents. And whoever -- I -- chat is moving too fast. South Korea, you are absolutely correct, they are number one. If you are interested in the international comparisons, OECE broadband portal is an excellent resource for looking at the data. The divide is not evenly divided. A distinct racial divide and while the statistics are constantly changing, it depend on when studies were done, and -- they're improving, which is really a good thing. But there is still definitely less adoption in minority communities. Interesting phenomenon that is going on there, according to a 2011 PEW internet study, an uptick in the adoption of smartphones by minorities. There is also an income divide. Not surprising that people of low income are much less likely to have broadband access and there is the urban versus rural divide which is decreasing because of concerted efforts over the past few years to close the middle mile and last mile gaps in connectivity, but a little caveat there, when you see data for households using broadband, it doesn't necessarily account for the speed of connection. There are a lot of households in rural communities still on dial-up. I don't know if any of you here are on dial-up or remember it, but it is not the same as high-speed access. There is also an education divide, very much alive and well, and a lot of activity going on to address this divide. I think the really critical thing that we want to recognize -- this is a challenge to our entire nation. It takes our whole community, not just at the local level, but moving up to state and then up to national, that we own this entire challenge as ours and not see it as some individual problem. And with that, I'm going to turn this over to Mary Chute, who will tell us how IMLS is working to build digital communities. >> Thank you, Betha. Hello everyone. Very nice to have you all join us, whether it is morning or afternoon where you are. As noted before, I am Mary Chute. Deputy for libraries at IMLS. I'm assuming that many folks on the line are going to have a feel for who the institute of museum and library services is, but just in case some of you don't, just a couple of quick sentences. We are the federal agency that provides support for libraries and museums and archives. The federal support for libraries goes back to the mid-1950s. It has taken many different forms over the years. It started off as the library services act, went through an iteration of the library services and construction act, and then at this moment in time is library services and technology act. That came about in 1997 when the federal aid for libraries moved out of the Department of Education and integrated into what had then been the institute of museum services, which had also come from the department of education, but about 20 years sooner. We are known for that grants to state money that is your LSTA funding through the state libraries. We are known for national leadership grants, Laura Bush, 21st century program, native American, native Hawaiian program. What we are not quite as well known for is the leadership we are increasingly providing on the national level. Trying to form partnerships at the national level that will trickle down and have a positive impact and position. Our libraries and museums well at the state and local level. One recent example of that was a partnership with the Department of Labor, including a handshake and good press release and sharing of resources from the state library community, the one-stop centers, but that initiative actually left very fertile ground for project compass, a Webjunction project that allowed a great amount of sharing of resources and train the trainer activity across the country. Helping everybody help the unemployed and underemployed in their communities. It is one of these national partnerships that brings us to this table or panel today. The national broadband plan was released by the federal communications commission in March of 2010. And in that plan, it was noted that absent action, the individual and societal costs of digital exclusion would continue to grow. The plan then went on to recommend that IMLS provide leadership to libraries and community-based organizations as they improved digital adoption and use. So, hence here we are working with a great group of partners. The vision of the plan is to make broadband pervasive and affordable for everyone. In today's society, broadband is essential for equal opportunity for equal cost. Whether an education, economic well being, social life and civic engagement. Key goals are to leverage existing infrastructures to make strategic investments and improve critical digital literacy skills and ultimately build digitally inclusive communities. Recommendation 9.3 of the plan is the place where we find the recommendation that IMLS help local communities build digital literacy skills. To train personnel of digital literacy partners by developing online tutorials for using government web sites, for creating tool kits for librarians to help patrons with accessing online government services. It also recommends that IMLS develop guidelines for public access technology to be used by libraries and community-based organizations so that they can assess the needs of the unique community in which they find themselves. Guidelines that would be reviewed annually in order to reflect the ever-changing technology, ever-changing practices and ever-changing demographics. Digital inclusion is about infrastructure and policy. In the same way that transportation and -- and highways are. Broadband would be equated with the throughway system. Policy in the land of the highway, speed limits, keeping to the right unless you are passing. Parallel digital inclusion policy areas would be things like equity of access, promotion of adoption, of broadband availability and affordability. So, why should we care? Either individually or as communities. Digital inclusion in the ability of Americans to operate in a high-tech world are very important to our future. Sectors like education, business, health care, and government already are experimenting with innovative applications and business models. Online job applications, electronic medical records, E-Government services, rely on the ability of all Americans to be able to use computers and the internet. Technology also impacts the broader society by bringing new opportunities to rural areas, expanding the world of the homebound. Enabling the hearing and visually impaired to participate more when they are connected. Key challenges. Research by IMLS and others shows access and broadband deployment are lacking for many people in rural areas, tribal nations, and inner cities. In terms of adoption and use, roughly 30% of Americans are nonadopters. They tend to be people with lower incomes and as Betha has said before, less formal education. Two examples of the underserved populations are senior citizens and those who are nonnative English speakers. Primary barriers to adoption, relevance, cost, and a lack of digital literacy skills. Now, IMLS was involved in development of a framework for building digital inclusive community. I'm going to talk a little about that. This is actually the deliverable in terms of that request for guidelines. We tend to be very careful around the guideline piece. As a federal agency, we can't be seen as putting these unfunded mandates out there. We can provide what we think is advice to best practices, good models. Hence the development of the framework. IMLS's response to the national broadband plan to develop digital inclusion framework. This is soon to be released as our building digital communities initiative. The agency worked very hard to make the process itself, the process of creating it an inclusive one. We set up a cooperative agreement with the University of Washington and the international city/county management association. In that collaborative effort, we created a digital inclusion working group of 16 people. Experts who provided iterative feedback on the University of Washington draft framework. We had an initial in-person meeting and then met online. We then reached out to a digital inclusion network, and, of course, all of these had acronyms. You can imagine where we were with our DWINs and our -- we solicited feedback from other federal agencies by holding a webinar. The framework itself, building digital communities, is this response to the national broadband plan. The vision, the principles, goals and strategies that make up the framework are targeted at helping community leaders initiate community discussions, conduct asset mapping, and foster digital inclusion. This is not intended as being for and by librarians exclusively. The focus is about communities, not strictly libraries. Digital inclusion framework has seven principles in the areas of access and adoption. You will see them on this slide clustered under the two different categories. Access, there are four principles. Availability, affordability, design for inclusion, and public access. Under adoption, there are three additional principles, relevance, digital literacy, and consumer safety. I will be using the digital literacy, which is bold on this slide, as an example in a minute. This is a very complicated plan in its entirety, and I don't mean complicated to use. I just mean that it has a tremendous amount of information in the document. And in order to get as much as I can in my 10 minutes here, I want to be sure that I have a chance to drill down within one sector, and that will be in this digital literacy area. The six strategic areas listed below is where a community may want to apply these seven principles. Areas such as economic and work force development, education, health care, public safety, and emergency services, civic engagement and social connections. Under each of the principle and strategic areas, we have developed several goals. Now, again, this is where we're going to drill down and look at one example. And for all of those categories, there will be multiple goals and under the goals there will be multiple strategies and tactics. So, for example, we're going to take principle 6, digital literacy, the one that was bold on the earlier slide, and there are five goals under digital literacy. This is goal number one. Digital literacy training needs and assets in the community are identified and evaluated and a strategy for meeting the digital literacy needs of the community is adopted. That's our number one goal. So, if we drill down under that goal, there will be sample strategies. Within each goal, there are five different approaches. And within each approach is a set of strategies. The strategies are intended to be straightforward and manageable. Even though I say it is complicated complicated, it's comeplicated in its number of parts but hope it is an easy roadmap to follow. In this much simplified example, I am showing one strategy under each of those approaches. For the individual, as you are working under this particular goal in digital literacy, the individual might help a neighbor get connected to the internet. For the libraries, the community-based organizations and other community anchor institutions, organize a digital literacy core of volunteers to improve digital literacy outreach in the community. The business sector. The business sector may form partnerships with libraries and CBO's to provide trainers for computer skills classes. Local and tribal governing bodies provide online content and services designed for all levels of digital skills. Influencing policy, support strategies to train and provide digital literacy mentors to libraries and CBO's providing community technology services. This creates a policy level interest in this last category. From here, we're looking to the future. On this slide, I'm giving you a dead link. I have to tell you that up front. The building digital communities final report, the big document from the University of Washington and ICMA is currently on the University of Washington web site and you can find that 120-page report there. This is an incredibly rich report with a lot of wonderful information. However, the more digestible, we hope, 30 page version that IMLS is putting out, targeted to practitioners and will be available by mid-March at the URL you are being given here. It is not live yet but we wanted to be sure that you had it. That is your preview. You have the link even though it is not functional yet. I do apologize for that. Our promise to ourselves and our community it will be through all edits and out there by the time of PLA, which is coming all too soon in mid-March. We also have an active grant to Webjunction, ICMA and tech soup to develop a summit agenda, community practice, online resources for digital inclusion initiatives. Ron and Jennifer may be able to give you a few more details about that. IMLS just released the new strategic plan creating -- strategic goal number two about community, the community anchor role we see libraries and museums playing. Strong community -- enhance civil engagement, cultural opportunities, economic vitality and certainly broadband connectedness. Next steps still being considered but might involve the development of things such as evaluation tools, press kits, community forum materials, and the agency is going to continue to support innovative projects in this area through grant opportunities in our national leadership grants and the Laura Bush, 21st century program. We hope you all join us in those next steps as we move forward. >> Thank you so much Mary. Speaking on behalf of Webjunction, we are really excited to be part of this effort through that grant. And I encourage everyone, if you have questions as the speakers move along, please enter them in chat and we will collect them and moderate a discussion at the end of the presentations. Right now I will hand it to Ron Carlee. >> Ron: Thank you very much. I come to you from Washington, D.C. Also where Mary works out of. Good afternoon from my perspective, and good morning to those of you on the other coast. So, what is ICMA? It is the international city county -- double duty, city county Management Association, professional association for appointed city county and town managers around the U.S. and internationally. But we also support anyone who works professionally in local government. Department director, library directors, and others with whatever their professional background, toward what is our common mission and vision, which is to help through professional management build sustainable communities that improve lives worldwide. And that is why we're working in the space of digital inclusion. The reality is that no community can really be sustainable, especially from an economic standpoint, if it is not digitally connected, and, likewise the individuals living in communities will not be able to fulfill their individual potential without being connected with digital technologies as well. It is really very easy for us to decide to partner with IMLS, -- state library directors to work on this project. If we are going to deal with big issues of digital inclusion or virtually anything else that is of significance, one of the first things we have to recognize is that no entity can do it alone. No local government, no subset of local government and no other sector by itself can affect major community change without collaboration. As we worked with IMLS University of Washington and others to develop the framework, we tried to reach out, as Mary described, and touch a lot of other sectors and bring their input into the development of the framework. Likewise, as you are thinking about implementation of the framework, the same collaboration will have to occur on a community-by-community basis. As I said, no entity can do this alone, but any entity can be the catalyst. And this is the special role in this area, in digital inclusion, where we believe public library is -- public libraries can play a strong leadership role. The truth of the matter is that to the extent that we have digital inclusion in this country today, it is largely because of the role that public libraries have played. Your experience and knowledge lays the foundation to take each community and hopefully the entire nation to a different level. And I want to ask you just for a moment to think about the different components of the framework. If this was your first exposure to it. My 248th exposure to it and sometimes it feels overwhelming to me. Access, adoption, application. Each of those is really large and really complex, and especially when you get to application, where you -- we have focused in with the feedback that we got from all of the different sectors that you see on the slide, to zero in on the areas that we think make the most difference for the future of our communities. Economic development, education, health care, public safety, emergency management, civic engagement and social connection. Again, so, the question is what role can you play and your organization in being a catalyst to it try to advance this cause where you live? What we found as we reached out to communities and as we held forums in three communities, our -- are these high-level findings? First of all, there is some sense that there is a need to do it. The challenge, though, is people are not always quite sure what to do or where to start. Mary just described the framework as a road map. That is what it is. It is a road map, a template, a menu, our best thinking from people literally all across this country in a lot of different sectors coming together and saying these are the things that people need to work out. And what we have also found is that while communities recognize that they need to do things, there is not the collaboration. People are working on different aspects individually, and in very uneven ways with varying degrees of success. Some of which are really quite significant, so that there are lessons to be learned from work that other communities have done, which is -- what you will hear later in this call from David, and some of the work that has been done in Seattle that provides the leading practices worthy of others to consider. The framework was seen as a helpful way to guide people and what we want to do is to bring in, not just stories from David and Seattle, but stories that you may identify that can have applicability in other communities. But in the end, as each community tries to move forward in digital inclusion, it -- the efforts are going to have to be tailored to that community. We certainly learned that from the three community that we visited. This is pretty interesting three communities. I will tell you how they were picked if I had any idea. It -- they just emerged. And they were, as you might imagine, very different. Los Angeles was the smallest of the three forums that we held. And among the leadership people we met with there, they were the most informed about issues of digital inclusion. Oklahoma City, leaders there however were more diverse. We had really good participation from the state emergency management agency, really looking at how you communicate and contact with people in an emergency and during recovery and what do you do about people who are not connected? And Bangor, Maine, being a much smaller location and a much smaller state, interestingly is one of the more organized. They have a lot of really good lessons to learn there. And we had probably the most participation from the most sectors, particularly with strong support from education. And so, it may not be that as you look at the six application areas that you are going to have strong organizational support in everyone of them. Again, what are the -- who has the awareness and the willingness to come together and really work to make a difference? And we found that will are certainly a ready and willing pool of people out there if they can come together. So, that's the challenge. How do you -- how do you get started? And this is a -- we described this -- these five steps in the framework. They're pretty simple. Basically the way you do any kind of community building effort. But part of the question is what do you want to do? Because this is not a rhetorical question. It is one that each community has to decide for itself. Do you want to tackle the entire area of digital inclusion and really develop a master plan, and that may sound overwhelming, but we do that in a lot of areas and communities already. We have master land use plans. We have master transportation plans. We have master plans for the arts and for historical preservation, and for open space. Is it right for your community to really think about doing a master plan for digital technologies? And if that is the approach, that is a significant, big effort that requires one level of organization. On the other hand, as you look at your community and assess the relative priorities and capacity and readiness, it may be that you just want to work in one area. Maybe it is economic development. Maybe it is education. Maybe it is health care. It will depend on each individual community and the people that are willing to come together. That first step is, indeed, the most important, convening stakeholders together so that you jointly identify what the priority and focus will be, develop a shared understanding of the issues around the components you work on, and then move forward in what is ultimately a pretty iterative process. And so, as -- as we have finished with the framework and as you look at it and begin to thing about it, our next step is to go back and visit with additional communities and drive down to a little bit more detail. What areas of people really most interested in? What tools do they need to be able to move forward? What are the leading practices and how do we compile those and make them available to people? So, hopefully those of you who are on this call will be part of some element of the next steps, and that the work that we do will help you as you seek to improve your communities. I look forward to answering any questions that you may have. But let me at this point hand the presentation over to David. >> Great. >> David: Thank you, Ron. The links for the ICMA there. What I will talk about is sort of two things. It is great to be here, great to see all of the folks on the call as well. I know that you guys all have a tremendous set of resources and knowledge and I'm seeing some of that through on the chat here. I will talk a little bit about the city's role and use that as a point to jump off on some of the partnerships that we have developed and some of the community investment. And then a statewide project we have called the communities connect network, which I am part of and I know there is a couple of other folks on the call here that have been part of that. Props to them for that. So, at the city of Seattle, we have been doing kind of digital divide divide, community technology program since 1996. That started out with our commitment to be sure that when the city puts information on line, residents can access that and use it well. As you approach the city or county or regional governments for projects on digital inclusion work, to recognize tremendous interest and need in all of the departments of government to get their services out. So, if you are not in government, then there is opportunities for partnership around content there. So, for us here, sort of some -- some foundations that I found. As I mentioned internally, digital inclusion wraps around all other activities. It sort of like we don't have photocopiers just for the sake of photocopiers. They get used for things. Part of that value then is for as you are building a partnership, to go to, if you are not -- already participate in the homeless efforts, education efforts, and digital inclusion is in a sense part of all of that. You will see some of the topic areas reflected in digital inclusion framework that grew out of the national broadband plan. What I find is that people really get the concept and value but don't necessarily have experience in how to apply it. So, what I found, as we're building partnerships with people, working on projects, one of the important things about building a network in your community, digital inclusion, put forward and frame what the experience is. What the best practices is, or have a chance to share how that is actually getting applied from a small community-based organization that's serving seniors or serving immigrant and refugees that may have real expertise in getting Vietnamese curriculum out to the community, to the libraries and their understanding of content on up to corporate organizations and their understanding of how broadband works. So, this opportunity to sort of come back and not to assume people know exactly how to translate the concept of digital inclusion to an action plan. You know, you want to keep using and building the capacity of diverse organizations. I think one of the things that we have certainly found is that, you know, we have to build the capacity of organizations to deliver those services. They may be understanding how to reach out to a particular community, but don't have necessarily experience in running a computer lab, for instance. Part of the goal on a digital inclusion plan is building the capacity and kind of recognizing the role that each institution plays in that. And then for us at the city, it certainly has been building internal partners, too. Our mayor's office of senior citizens is engaged in seniors training seniors and computing project -- we helped to fund a lab with the Human Services department, getting youth employment slots, and part of that is internal in helping your own organization participate. And then community and program assessments are ongoing. So it's changing. The biggest areas we see right now are trends towards mobile technology and how do we deliver services that way? How do we help kids do their home work using mobile technology? The needs keep changing. More computer labs and libraries and folks are teaching Facebook. It is an interesting piece, continuing to respond to the needs out there. So, just a little bit about how some things that we have done here and where that has fit in. So, one of the things that the city did is actually designate a staff person, who is me, and we took some of the cable franchise revenue and put that into a community technology program. Establishing, as Ron talked about, you need somebody paying attention to it. One thing that you all can do is in your -- in your library and your organization or go to your city or county or whatnot and ask who is in charge of strategies around digital inclusion? You may find that in Human Services department, cable officers, office of economic development, but the important thing is to start to ask and try to identify who is responsible working on digital inclusion. We have done what we call our tech map. A directory of computer labs around the city and the communities connect network project, directory of those around the state. Mapping out what are the assets, which we can then connect to other organizations. Right now we're promoting the low cost internet for Comcast and century link in our area, and refurbish computers from another organization. We use this directory to direct people to that site. Research, we have done an interesting project, information technology indicators for a healthy community. We have done this residential survey, nonprofit organizations, but we have done the survey now three times since 2000. And what it does, it says basically our local version of what the digital divide here, how are people using government services? What are barriers to adoption? What it has also done is provided one of the things we do, large community forum, and just said okay, what are your values around digital inclusion and what are some of of the assets that your group can bring to this work? Excuse or reason or a way to do some of the convening and work on that. We have done focus groups with seven different language communities, and then been working with the disabled community as well in trying to encourage their participation and learn from them as well. So, we took a little of our cable television revenue and put it towards a technology matching fund. We do community grants here, this year $320,000 in grants, up to $20,000, to fund community projects. Really for us at the city, we see the community organizations as partners, because they know the community best. That has been a way both for us to leverage and for them to leverage our funding to get other folks involved in their localized efforts. And as well as to learn from each other. We also the last couple of years have been doing something called our communities online boost grants, kind of recognizing getting neighborhoods able to effectively use online tools and social media for engagement. Something that we're starting to work more in. I mentioned briefly the seniors training seniors and computing project where peers are teaching each other. Another project that we have been engaged in is a partnership with the University of Washington, and school for communications, and the YMCA, Puget Sound -- Pugetsoundoff.org is the web site. Building a regional hub and using a combination of online and on the ground training for youth to get their voice out. And in doing that with city folks, so, for instance, councilmember Mike O'Brien, the last couple of years has worked with them to sponsor develop a human rights day banner. Create artwork and post it that represents human rights and join in that discussion. And then just a few other kind of things that we have been working on here. We do offer public internet computers. We partner with the parks and rec community center on those. And food banks, put out a couple of computers there. Negotiated in the cable television agreement, free broadband for nonprofit organizations providing public computing centers and digital inclusion. That is something to talk to your city about potentially for when the cable franchise comes up for negotiation. I'm happy to share information about that. And then we have been partnering with a number of folks with a get online week, starting to do that community education. Lastly, a tool that we have been working on, work -- another project here is an information technology project management tool around digital inclusion. When products are being developed, we're taking into consideration who is going to be using them. That PROJproject focused on how are we effective in the content issue. And I will talk for a couple of minutes about our state network, too. So, as we were seeing the work that we were doing, you know, we have seen kind of an ongoing issue about sustainability for the public computing centers. How do we make strategic advancements and investments and how do we use best practices? For us that meant looking statewide and what can we learn from what others are doing around the state. How can we influence investments and share information and develop better policy. So, we formed a group called the communities connect network as a statewide group to advance digital inclusion. And that has been a fairly large set of stakeholders, which includes industry, cable television association, independent telephone operators association, education, University of Washington, Washington State University, number of nonprofits, and then that project is currently managed by a non profitprofit group. A couple of things we have done with that, we have generally used a broad access literacy contact framing. As I talk about that, getting the tools in people's hands. And then we developed a state definition of digital inclusion and community technology. That is something that we got passed in Washington State, which provides us a framework, which then established a community technology program statewide. Our state council on digital inclusion is something that I think can be replicated in regions and each state. That brings folks to the table to compare notes and talk about strategies together. And then lastly, we have been -- we got one of the federal grants -- sorry, I just want to go back here on one of the broadband opportunity grants. A coalition of 37 different centers, which includes the work force development council and the state court system and justice network and bar association. So, again, having a tool to bring together folks around this work. And then just want to mention -- you know, the information school at the U-DUB has been an active partner. But building evaluation partnerships a really critical. Look to your local universities and colleges and folks working on evaluation, these are some of the models that we have used. Kind of mentioned this B-top project, I will skip through that for now. And then we developed a hub, information hub at communitiesconnect.org. I encourage you to look at that. Network directory or tech map on it. I'm happy to share information from that. Resource library where we're sharing information with folks in Ohio and San Francisco and a couple of other places. Tagging resources. I did also want to mention for folks to look at if you don't know about it already, digitalliteracy.gov, the federal government site for -- clearinghouse of information on materials. That is another good resource. And lastly, this is an interesting piece as we're doing this work, so this is from 1905. So, envision about electricity. It is not a necessity under no condition is it universally used by people of a community. Not the business of anyone that I use electricity or I use any form of an artificial light at all. So, wind that forward 107 years, so I think, you know we're understanding that the work on connecting folks is critical. I think we still have that challenge in terms of making sure that it is universally used in helping people understand the benefit of that. I know understanding how to use broadband is one of the biggest challenges to adoption. And so, as we are working here and elsewhere just to think about that you guys are helping them form the building blocks for building communities, and we think about that in terms of, again, access literacy and content and getting the infrastructure in and ensuring diversity and use and diversity at the table in performing these regional digital inclusion networks and digital inclusion initiatives. And that's it. >> Betha: Thank you David and thank you Mary and Ron. It looks like we have some time for questions and answers and the chat has suddenly become quite lively in the last few minutes. I think -- we will start with quite a few questions have come up around funding. That is inevitable, because we can all have big visions about what we would like to accomplish but it gets down to the crunch of what is available in terms of grants. I -- I think this has a lot to do with the collaboration piece, but I would really like to hear -- maybe Mary, first, you could chime in. There was a question about the grants that you mentioned that somebody wanted to know if there is anything in there for public libraries, having to do with the digital initiative. >> Mary: Thank you very much. We don't have a special grant program specifically targeting broadband and public libraries. All of that being said, if you look at the guidelines for the national leadership grants, even the Sparks Grants, which are smaller projects. Public libraries are always eligible entities. Collaboration is also a strengthening aspect of any proposal that comes in. I think particularly in something that is focused on building a stronger community, enabling a community. I always find it difficult to believe that we can do that single-handed from inside the walls of our libraries. We need to be part of a broader community conversation. However, the eligible grantee would need to be a library or a museum, if you are looking at IMLS money. As I said, there is not a new, fresh, directed pot of money for this. We would love to see through the FEC's good work and our good work and our deliverables that all of the sudden there is a new funding screen, but I don't know if we can count on that in this economic climate. I would point you to the IMLS grant guidelines. Two major programs looking at, national leadership grants, more about the infrastructure and projects themselves, and the 21st century librarian program -- the skill sets needed by the library staff, librarians and other support staff to be helping their community on that path to empowerment. >> Betha: Great. Thank you, Mary. I know there were questions, David was talking about funding and grants in Washington. I'm so pleased that we have quite a good representation here from Seattle and from the Washington State library. I think a lot of the questions were answered, but Ron or David, do you have anything to add in terms of the funding piece of the picture? >> David: Ron, do you want to go first on this? I think that there is -- two things. I think one is that the part of the strategy needs to be looking at activities that are around specific focus areas like health or jobs or something, or for instance, the USDA has a project for prevention help for families and so some of the efforts need to be geared towards looking at funding in those specific content areas. I would encourage you to look at where locally you might be able to come up with some combination of funding mechanisms from local government or the telecommunication franchise fees or California, they have actually -- they have a portion of funds that they take from cell phone towers on state land and put that into a California teleconnect fund. I think there is still a big outstanding question in what will happen with the NTIA, national telecommunications infrastructure administration broadband grants. Those were initially funded through the stimulus build, American Recovery Act. A big question HANGing out there in terms of what ongoing federal support will be for that. Just a couple of thoughts. I will send out the link for our state definition of digital inclusion as well. But all the more reason why you need to keep having folks at the table together on this. It is a challenge. >> Ron: This is Ron. I had to switch from my mute button there. I would add one thought there. I -- I don't envision major new funding streams coming through. I do believe that some of the existing funding streams are going to look deeper at what is the digital inclusion strategy within communities, especially around library grants. I think Bill and Melinda Gates, foundation marks, the broader framework of digital inclusion, going to have an interest in strategies. And the reality is that a lot of the local governments on which many public libraries depending on funding still facing fairly significant budget challenges right now, and so some of the work in this area of the -- the planning and analytical work, we think can be done to help demonstrate the value of the library within the community. Libraries are taking a big hit during the recession. Too often lumped in with quote discretionary services. As we talk about digital inclusion, we begin to see how critically important the role of libraries is in areas where perhaps the immediate connections are not always made. I do believe if the libraries can be really strategic and reach out and build a constituency around the work that they're doing in this area, as well as re-evaluate what they're doing, re-evaluating the resources now to digital inclusion and being more strategic, intentional, and explicit, especially around communicating what they're doing, then while it may not be a way to generate significant new sources of funds, it may be a way to help protect the sources of funding that they do have and hopefully expand as public resources may become available in the future. >> David: We're seeing the same issue as nonprofits as well in terms of funding. >> Ron: Yes, the question, what value, impact are you having on the community? And I think the framework provides a way to -- in a more compelling way actually explain what it is that you have been doing and the impact it has on the community. >> Go ahead. >> I was going to say, also, you know, just the -- getting the business community involved. I mean, we have had tremendous volunteers at some of our centers both from the tech community and the non-tech community in the business sector, and, you know, that ultimately increases their investments and helps them understand how the effort helps the whole range of things from economic development to jobs, education, public safety when you help kids. >> Okay. This is Betha, I want to squeeze in one more session, although I say appreciate all of the links being brought in. I will be creating a blog after this and welcome people to continue the information through comments there or archives page discussions. My last question I want to squeeze in here, because there was an attention to rural libraries and an awareness that they have a very unique set of problems. They are definitely on the lower end of adoption, and does anyone have any particular insights on what works for them or what is in store for projects that can be implemented specifically in rural communities? >> You know, I know there is -- funding-wise looking at the USDA on some of that, but in terms of programming, I know part of what we're seeing is some really nice partnerships being formed between the groups like the library and the YMCA's or the community action agencies. In one case we actually got the bar association, or I have seen 4-H clubs helping out. So, distance is greater, obviously that is a challenge. The connectivity piece, you know, I think we're -- where there is no facilities being built, we are seeing a trend towards frying to combine libraries with courthouses and community centers and multiservice groups so that you get sharing of resources and some of the comeplimentary work going on. >> Mary: This is Mary. I want to add in a reminder that the whole framework is meant to be a fluid document, and I know that the -- the benchmarks that are going to be coming out of the EDGE project, ICMA is working on with the Gates Foundation, and public libraries in particular, met to be responsive to different-sized communities. It is not intended to be a one size fits all. Principle areas you need to look at pointing you to the questions that you need to ask, but then recognizing that your response will be a unique one given your particular environment. I guess it is -- I would end with that plea to, you know, look at the tool, use the tool, and try to make it fit. I hope it has provided the guidelines that are necessary, that framework that is necessary for all five communities from the urban to the rural. >> Thank you. I think that is an excellent way to end. We're at the top of the hour. I think the framework is structured in such a way, possible to identify what are the priorities for your community and proceed from there and rather than trying to move forward on all fronts. It is a multifaceted effort to get to complete digital inclusion. Thank you everyone. Look for the blog posts later. We collect all of the links and post them on the archives page and I now hand it to Jennifer to wrap us up. Thanks everyone. >> Jennifer: Thank you to all of our presenters and Betha for her moderation. Just a note we will send out a link to the full archive later today. But also we will be posting additional information about the project that we are partnering with ICMA and Tech Soup, stay tuned. There will be lots more exploration of this framework, including rural libraries as well as other events related to the topic to come. Stay in touch with us. We look forward to seeing you next time on our Webjunction webinar. Thank you. Copyright © 2012 Show/Hide Header