BY KASEY GRIER, Guest columnist —
The Eastern Shore Public Library Foundation just awarded $16,578 to the Chincoteague Island Library and the Cape Charles Memorial Library to upgrade their public computer access.
Our goal was to help improve the experience that patrons have with IT in both affiliate libraries of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Public Library System.
These awards are the first round of a grant program that the foundation will offer each year, using proceeds from our annual appeal letter to meet special needs that aren’t covered by operating budgets.
Keeping IT updated for patrons is a constant challenge and was an obvious first choice for us as we move ahead with the foundation’s mission to support all the Eastern Shore’s public libraries.
Libraries are about books, right? Why do libraries need computers and all the stuff that goes with them?
As a director of the foundation, I have learned that today’s libraries are about open access to information and ideas in many formats.
Libraries are among the only places where access to the internet does not require a purchase.
Recall that during the pandemic, the free WiFi “hot spots” offered in library parking lots helped our students keep up with schoolwork.
Once, the challenge of finding information involved digging through each library’s card catalog, a river of 3” x 5” cards.
The card catalog as a monument to human knowledge met its end by the 2000s, replaced by OPACs, Online Public Access Catalogs.
The central library in Accomac had an OPAC by the mid-1990s. Now all four Eastern Shore libraries are linked in a single digital catalog.
And that same library was able to provide public access computers by the early 2000s, thanks to a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Walk into almost any public library today and you’ll see a bank of desktop monitors and towers.
Yes, you can always use the catalog to find a physical book to read. But libraries strive to meet the needs of patrons who do not have the means to pay for internet access, or who live in rural places where that service is unavailable.
Patrons use computers to fill out job and school applications and to download government documents. They complete coursework online.
They do genealogical research and correspond with others.
And they can print documents inexpensively.
Public libraries have become places where the essential internet is available to anyone with a library card — and library cards are free.
When I walk through the busy computer lab at the new Parksley library building — it takes space that would once have been occupied by the card catalog —I see patrons of all ages using the computers.
At a table with built-in tablets in the children’s room, kids play educational games promoting reading.
In the meeting rooms, groups chat on Zoom through a “Smart Screen” that can also be used for teaching.
The foundation is pleased to be able to play a part in supporting the IT needs of our libraries.
— The writer is president of the Eastern Shore Public Library Foundation.
