Libraries
Bridge the Information Gap
By John Eger, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Opinion,
October 30, 1996
On Tuesday, San Diegans will be asked to support a ballot initiative to raise the general sales tax to support our branch libraries.
While no one likes to vote for tax increases, the quarter-cent tax increase for a limited five years should give us a war chest to fight against computer illiteracy. It is an investment in our future and that of our children and all others who would otherwise be left behind.
However, San Diegans must do more than cast their vote. They must acknowledge the important role libraries can play in this effort, and take steps to ensure the monies are not misspent.
First, a look at the problem. The U.S. Department of Labor recently reported a jobless rate of 5.6 percent, or 7.4 million unemployed. The unaccounted-for -- people who have been unemployed so long and are probably discouraged that they have given up and are no longer part of the statistics -- number anywhere from 1 million to 5 million.
A large percentage of these unaccounted-for workers are the result of rapid technological change. We have all seen the headlines: "AT&T lays off 40,000." "IBM downsizes." "General Motors restructures." Whatever the term, increasingly it seems, people are falling between the cracks.
This is the darker side of the new "information economy." But equally troubling is that access to the information superhighway may determine our basic ability to function in a democratic society, a concern very much at the top of the public policy agenda of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Brown, along with Vice President Al Gore, was a major advocate of a new information infrastructure. He often asked: How do we avoid creating a society of "haves and have nots"?
Brown's question was a good one, for it appears we are clearly headed in the wrong direction. Last year, for example, for the first time, consumers spent $8 billion on personal computers, about the same amount spent on TVs. The problem, according to a Time magazine story, is that most of the purchases were made in the nation's richest areas. "In the nation's poorest areas . . . families with IBM Activas, NEC CD-ROM drives, modems, Internet connections and all the other paraphernalia so beloved by computer users, are few and far between."
The concern of technophobes and technosavvy alike is how to move us forward as a nation without widening the gap between young and old, black and white or rich and poor. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., former chairman of the House Communications Committee, calls this a form of "information apartheid."
A strident characterization, but Republicans and Democrats alike share a common concern about the fragmenting of America. Existing societal divisions are already troubling enough, but if the division between information rich and information poor exacerbates, our troubles will multiply exponentially.
Fortunately, there are a few bright spots where communities are searching for creative ways to lessen the technology gap. While Santa Monica was one of the first to start a public electronic network using public access terminals in places such as banks, community centers and grocery stores, San Diego is joining these ranks.
Today in Santa Monica, there are almost 100,000 community networks in various stages of development, providing some form of community access. And electronic kiosks, like those planned for San Diego, appear in community centers, shopping centers and libraries, throughout the country. Not surprisingly, it turns out that libraries may be the place where most people are turning.
New York City, as reported in CyberTimes, an on-line edition of The New York Times, called it "a quiet revolution at the library." According to the Times, "tens of thousands of New Yorkers are discovering the wonders of the Internet on PCs in New York public library branches and research centers."
Librarians say they are literally "overwhelmed," mostly from people who have heard about the Internet and the PC revolution, but are not in the position to afford a computer or modem or access to the Internet. The library is the only place offering them that kind of unrestricted access and, importantly, help. That, after all, is what libraries have traditionally represented, universal access to information, and help finding it.
If San Diego positions itself to be a city of the future -- a city transforming itself to capitalize on the basic shift to an economy built on the back of production, transfer, use and storage of knowledge or information -- libraries will play an increasingly critical role. Right now, they are the only real bridge we have between the industrial past and an information-rich future.
But this problem won't be solved by libraries alone. Nor will it be solved under the current proposal, without citizen participation and an overarching vision of an integrated, regional library system.
Today, we have a hodgepodge of branch library systems, only loosely connected and all operating with varying degrees of electronic capabilities. But if libraries dramatically increase investment in new technology, as they should, interconnectivity and interoperability will be of paramount importance not only to avoid waste and duplication, but to ensure that every library is connected to every other and to all our schools, and that every neighborhood is connected to every other and to the world.
The new downtown library, a valuable showcase for any city of the future, should be included in such a library system. Indeed, every library system should be integrated into an interactive, fully cooperative regional system. It simply doesn't make sense to do otherwise.
Cities of the Future, after all, are not cities at all, but rather large numbers of cities joined together as part of a regional economic community.
Fortunately, the geographic outline of the future of San Diego is reasonably clear as are the library systems within the region. Therein lies an opportunity.