Group items tagged

•The number of Internet-capable computers soared 39% — from about 137,000 in 2002 to nearly 190,000 in 2006. Libraries in rural states in New England and the Midwest led the country in public computers per capita in 2006. The increase in Internet access is thanks in part to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which launched a national program in 1997 to bring the Internet to libraries, beginning with the South. By 2003, the foundation had spent $250 million on some 47,000 computers, as well as training and tech support, bringing almost every public library online, said Jill Nishi, deputy director of the foundation's U.S. Libraries initiative. "You should be able to walk into any library and find Internet service," she said. "It's free, unfettered access to information."

Free Internet access is particularly important for low-income people, said Ken Flamm, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied the role of the Internet in public libraries. Only about a third of households with incomes below $25,000 have Internet access, according to federal data.