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Digital Divide 2007

Michael Pate — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:24:41 +0000

I have been making a point about the Digital Divide for a long point. While I believe socio-economic status is a contributing factor, it isn’t the sole reason.
bq.A new study published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that there is a growing digital divide across America. John B. Horrigan’s analysis of America’s use of Web 2.0 and information and communications technology in the broader sense shows that whilst a reasonable number of Americans are embracing new technology and Web 2.0, a disturbing number are either not getting the message, or are choosing not to participate. – Duncan Riley According to the results, 49% fall into the Few Tech Assets category and of those, 26% are almost completely disconnected. I see a number of these people because they come into my library every single day. I look forward to watching this gap close but I don’t expect to see it anytime soon.

Fee-Free Tax Filing

Michael Pate — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:44:51 +0000

Did your taxes yet? If you did, how did you file them?
bq.Increasing numbers of technology-savvy filers prepare their tax forms using Intuit’s TurboTax or H&R Block’s TaxCut software. But when it comes to filing their returns, many of them revert to paper. The IRS’ National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson is among them. “Tax filers say they like using the software, [but] they either don’t want to pay the fee, or they just don’t know where their information is going,” Olson said. The IRS would experience an immediate spike in e-filing if it offered a free, direct-file online site, she said. – Mary Mosquera You can consider me one of those people who uses a computer program to generate some paper. I e-filed two years ago but couldn’t locate the right hoops to jump through to do it again last year. When the IRS handles it properly, I will be glad to e-file again. Until then, they can deal with my nicely-formatted documents.

E-Government Access

Michael Pate — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:15:54 +0000

bq.In Florida, the financial support for public libraries with economic need dropped from 11 cents per dollar in the mid-1990s to 3.9 cents per dollar during the last budget year. The burden keeps shifting, but it appears there is little to no coordination among levels of government. As engaged citizens and civic leaders, it is time to acknowledge that the trend continues to point to technology for efficiencies in government and convenience for citizens – and this makes good sense. Yet when government services, educational institutions, medical programs and disaster programs rely on public libraries for support, the libraries need to be prepared to respond. Librarians are trained to provide assistance. It’s what they do. But until public libraries are recognized for the greater role they’ve been fulfilling since the advent of information technology, the wait in line or on the phone will be that much longer. – Donna Paz Kaufman We have been talking more and more about this issue in my library as we have people stopping in to get everything from out-of-state tax forms to credit reports to four-hour-long traffic school courses and having no idea of how to get started and what it actually entails. The digital divide isn’t so much of an access issue (although that is still important) as a learning and skill issue.

Giddy over Gates

Michael Pate — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 21:23:11 +0000

Last year, I asked what the introduction of the Shared Computer Toolkit meant for the Public Access Computer Security Tool. I found out this week that it has definitely become a replacement. At my library, we have been using our original Gates stations as our public Internet Access stations for a while now. Hazarding a guess, I would put the date at November 12, 1999. We actually have a few more as we have been able to acquire hand-me-downs from some our other branches as they did some upgrading. So our original 6 is now 12 (and we have one other station in to make 13). This week we are getting ready to deploy the replacements (once again provided by the Gates Foundation). Fortunately, the funding that provided for 6 last time allowed us to buy 13 this time. Our crack IT staff has been figuring out how to get the SCT to work in conjunction with PAMS; it turned out to be doable, but took customization. And because we took the time to preserve the original image of one of our old Gates stations, we are going to be redeploying those into the children’s areas with the original profiles and software intact. So this is a pretty big week all around. I am not definitely not going to predict what things will be like in 2014.

OpenOffice 2.0

Michael Pate — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 20:50:00 +0000

I looked at OpenOffice early in the development, and it was definitely not ready for primetime. The newly-released 2.0 is a different story, however. Next time we redo our public stations I am sorely tempted to replace Microsoft Office completely. Oh, and I definitely think there is a place for the remodeled Opera as well.

IE-Only Copyright

Michael Pate — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:07:40 +0000

bq.The U.S. Copyright Office is soliciting opinions, through August 22d, about it’s planned website upgrade that will require the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer, effectively banning most technically-advanced users and all Linux and open-source advocates from its service. – Dave Murphy I was stunned for a moment when I read that.
bq.Section 104 of the ART Act directs that preregistration procedures must be in place by October 24, 2005. 17 U.S.C. 408(f)(1). To comply with this time frame and to facilitate efficient processing of preregistration claims, inter alia, the proposed rule calls for filing such claims by electronic means only. At this point in the process of developing the Copyright Office’s system for online preregistration, it is not entirely clear whether the system will be compatible with web browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.1 and higher. Filers of preregistration applications will be able to employ these Internet Explorer browsers successfully. Support for Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3, and Mozilla 1.7.7 is planned but will not be available when preregistration goes into effect. Present users of these browsers may experience problems when filing claims. – Copyright Office I think “planned” in this case is pretty much equivalent to Microsoft’s plan to fully support CSS. If you care about this issue, be sure and take advantage of the public comment period.

Shared Computer Toolkit

Michael Pate — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:43:04 +0000

Microsoft has released the Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP. This is not to be confused with the Public Access Computer Security Tool. The PAC Tool was designed for NT Workstation, but has worked great for us on 2000 stations. It also doesn’t jumping through the hoops of Windows Genuine Advantage, which this one will do. But as 2000 ages, I guess it will be time to move on at some point. What would really be interesting is investigating using this in conjunction with Clonezilla.

Internet Access @ your library

Michael Pate — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:26:52 +0000

bq.Virtually every U.S. public library now offers free Internet access but most ration it, inhibiting the ability of lower-income families to benefit from the Information Age. – Anick Jesdanun At my library, we ration internet usage as well. But we also allow people to stay on longer if they have a legitimate need to do so (which does happen, but is extremely rare). In my experience, this is much less of an issue than the article makes it out to be.
bq.One of the ways in which we can help our libraries succeed is turning them into user-centered institutions. This means really thinking about our users, and examining the rules and policies that might benefit us, but also might be preventing our patrons’ successful use and continued enjoyment of our libraries. – Aaron Schmidt We also went through a couple of changes very recently that may or may not help. Guest Access is now $1.00 for a week (reduced from $5.00). We now have razor-thin margin, but I argue that we would actually make more money with a better P/E ratio. And it seems to be working. But of course, this actually increases usage. The other change is that wireless access for non-residents is now free, instead of $3.00 for a week (greatly reduced staff time). This hasn’t been used a tremendous amount yet, but I think it will continue to have a positive impact as we move into the future.

Broadband Speed

Michael Pate — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 01:43:09 +0000

I got the chance to upgrade my home DSL connection from 1.5 to 3.0 and lower the cost at the same time. Whether the fact this coincided with the arrival of cable broadband access in our area is a coincidence or not I will leave to others to judge. I am pretty happy right now.
bq.If you think that today’s high-speed Internet connections are fast, wait till you see what cable operators plan. The industry’s standard-settings unit, CableLabs, plans to endorse this month technology that will let operators boost speeds 400% to 1,600%, over their existing lines. Motorola and Cisco are among the companies offering alternative methods to increase broadband speeds by linking together the bandwidth used for four or more conventional TV channels. – David Lieberman And the future certainly looks to hold some interesting possibilities.

Half-Life Broadband Penetration

Michael Pate — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 04:14:15 +0000

I have no idea if Half-Life 2 players are a representative sample of the penetration of Broadband Access into society, but if they are this survey shows a rather sizable portion of gamers have high-speed access.