Page 772 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 5 April 2022
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Governments across Australia and around the world are increasingly recognising the leading role that libraries play in improving digital equality and access. To further expand on this commitment to the community service that I have outlined, there have been successful pilots of wireless internet device loans, such as at Thomastown Library in Victoria. One of the librarians at Thomastown Library was one of the staff working early and late, providing care packages of books and the like, which our fabulous librarians in the ACT also undertook; and this was during the COVID pandemic.
Coralie, this librarian, started noticing some cars in the car park morning and evening, and thought it was very strange that they were staying for so long. She ended up going to say hello to some of them and discovered it was parents and children spending hours there, within range of the free library wi-fi, so that the kids could do their homework.
According to the 2021 Australian Digital Inclusion Index, 92 per cent of Australians earning less than $52,000 a year would have to pay more than five per cent of their household income to access a quality, reliable internet connection, and 14 per cent would need to pay more than 10 per cent.
Thomastown library undertook, during the midst of Melbourne’s sixth lockdown, to trial providing free wi-fi dongles with 60 gigabytes per month to 100 families for a year. To date this has been a successful trial and there are multiple other trials underway in Victoria. This is a service that has also been tried and rolled out in other countries, including in places such as the New York Public Library in the US, which was the direct inspiration for the Thomastown trial.
I feel that there is a lot of possibility for such a program to be investigated in the ACT and delivered through our libraries. The final part of the motion that I am moving today calls on the government to make improving digital access and inclusion a priority through the Imagine 2030 libraries co-design process, including through consideration of wireless internet device loans and other initiatives to increase access to necessary digital equipment.
Investing in good public infrastructure today means investing in equitable access to digital infrastructure and technology. We know for a fact that libraries often guarantee digital access on premises. According to the 2016 study on four libraries run by the Newcastle City Council, libraries “play a significant role in deprived areas in relation to the provision of IT services otherwise inaccessible for the majority of users who live in the area”.
In the Newcastle case, the libraries provide PCs, scanners, printers and internet access that customers usually do not have at home. This means that these resources are the only ones available to support their work, study, entertainment, ordinary activities, communication, online social connections, and a whole range of things that are now part of our normal everyday activity. Hence this helps to reduce the first level of the digital divide.
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