The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have stated that they will begin a new pilot program spanning 7 US states which will help fund Internet expansion into public libraries, as well as donating $850,000 to the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy.
The Foundation has carefully selected Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Virginia to be included in the initiative after monitoring Internet speeds and congestion at libraries. These libraries will receive a much-needed upgrade with $6.8 million donated by the Foundation. The money is welcomed after a 2007-2008 study by the American Library Association showed that 73 percent of public libraries were the only place in the neighborhood to get free access to the Internet.
Many of the libraries also had time or bandwidth quotas that were frequently met (especially by students searching for information about their research papers or by people searching for jobs.) The program is only a pilot program for now, but will hopefully be successful and will be expanded to many more libraries in more states.
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