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Bill Gates has had some ambivalence about the end results of his library-oriented donations in rural towns, but a recent article for Rural Libraries suggest much good–and potential for good. The smaller the rural library, it seems, the higher the poverty rate as a rule. It’s as high as 42 percent in the case of libraries serving populations under 1,000 and 23 percent at the upper end, 25,000+. Also see the rural library issue of a Gates Foundation publication, called Connections, as well as The Gates Legacy in Library Journal.

The TeleRead take: One of the big issues of rural libraries, especially, is collection size. As reference desk veteran John Iliff has written elsewhere on this site, size matters. A well-stocked national digital library system in the TeleRead vein could help immensely. Meanwhile, in rural and urban libraries alike, the issue of basic computer access remains. From Library Journal:

Nearly all of the 500 children we interviewed use computers and the Internet, often at multiple sites including schools, libraries, and increasingly at home. Children with the least access come from low-income families, live in low-income neighborhoods, and have parents with less education. These children are the most dependent on library devices.

School-age children spend about an hour a day on computers

 
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