Libraries as ISPs
by Kate Williams

An email service from your library? It's a technology your patrons will value.

Libraries have been inventing the networked society in lots of ways, from OPAC on up to today's digital collections and services.  Alongside the dot.coms and the ecommerce buzz are lots of valuable public resources online.  Patrons value these resources and the people and institutions that build them.  A prime example in Ohio is that many patrons turn to the library rather than AOL or some other service when they dial up to the Internet. This typically includes a personal email account that can include in it the library's name—very good publicity, when you consider how far and fast email can travel.

In Toledo, patrons use their library card to purchase dial-up Internet service for $75 per year.  Across the Maumee River, libraries throughout Wood County make the same offer—by means of a partnership with the all-volunteer Wood County Freenet, which connects to the Internet pipelines of Bowling Green State University and houses networking equipment in various libraries.

Who else is offering this? How does it work and what good is it? Via a survey—on the Internet, naturally, and with 60% of Ohio libraries responding—and then a series of conversations with librarians, we found out.

As part of its Internet policy, Akron Public Library has provided 13,000 patrons with a username and password in order to use the Internet in the library.  That username—provided for free—also allows them to dial up to the Internet and Web from any home computer for one hour a day, more for text-only services.  Although not every patron has made use of the service, positive user feedback has helped the library maintain and expand the service as it grew from a text-only Internet service before the days of the World Wide Web. "People just rave about the service," reports the library's Ann Hutchison. "It's been real exciting."

An estimated 5,000 patrons across rural Knox County—one tenth of the county's population-make use of free dial-up services provided by KnoxNet, a service of the local public library. According to Andy Richmond at the Public Library of Mt. Vernon and Knox County, "It has helped people in this rural area jump into the new age. I think the level of conversation about computers is higher here than it would be in similar communities without this service."  The library "gets lots of good PR, and the experience has been a catalyst" to help the library develop other electronic services.

More than 4,000 patrons—again, roughly 10 percent of the county's population—in more affluent Preble County are customers of the fee-based dial-up service established by their library and a commercial partner.  The library attracted the first local Internet provider to the county, offering to house equipment on library premises in exchange for services.  This led to area schools partnering with the library for electronic services, saving the school money in the process. "It does my heart good to see that email address on a person's business card, because they're coming through our building," says Preble Country District Library director Susan Kendall.  "It really put the library on the map."

More than a dozen Ohio libraries reported that they are thinking about offering this service or interested in the research findings.  In Ohio, a minimal ISP can be set up using a web server and about $500 worth of equipment.  A rough estimate of $6-8 per month in connectivity costs provides monthly dialup service to a user.  Partnering with network-rich institutions and setting reasonable time limits for patrons can bring these costs way down.  The main advice from these experienced librarians, who all expect to continue their dial-up services, is to plan ahead, because patrons will flock to it.

As Jody Bates at Way Public Library in Perrysburg put it, "It's a great way for people to get Internet access at a reasonable price.  It's one more reason people need us."

Kate Williams is an Ohio library patron living in Toledo and a doctoral student with the Alliance for Community Technology at the University of Michigan School of Information (http://www.communitytechnology.org).  A detailed research report is available from katewill@umich.edu.
 

[This article was published in Ohio Libraries, Spring 2000.]