About Me
- Name: cresmer
- Location: Winooski, Vermont, United States
I'm the web editor at Seven Days, and I blog at Blurt.
VT Blogs
- Abada Abada
- Alphecca (gay gun nut)
- Art + Function
- Beauty is in the eye of the storm.
- Beginner's Mind
- Blog For America
- Candleblog
- The Carpetbagger Report
- Cool Blue Blog
- Corporate PR
- Cut to the Chase
- Diabologue
- Digamma
- Digital Common Sense
- Dohiyi Mir
- Don't Be Iffy
- Down on the Farm
- DTWOF: The Blog
- flameape.
- Fluid Motion
- From the Woods
- Hall Monitor
- Hallucinogenius
- Icebox Records
- Illuminati Slayer
- Knit Knerds
- librarian.net
- McCreativity
- Movie Real
- MyDD
- Norsehorse's Home Turf
- Pas Au-Dela
- Pat Political
- PoliticsVT
- ((stereojoe))
- The 8th Nerve
- Tom's Astronomy Blog
- The uvScene
- Twenty-Something
- Vermont Diary
- Vermont Fresh Network
- Vermont, Our Life Here
- Wendy Usually Wanders
VT alt media
- iBrattleboro
- iBurlington
- CCTV
- iPutney
- Free Radio Burlington
- Out in the Mountains
- Seven Days
- VCAM
- Vermont Guardian
- Vermont Woman
VT Mainstream Media
- Addison Independent
- Barre/Montpelier Times Argus
- Barton Chronicle
- Bennington Banner
- Brattleboro Reformer
- Burlington Free Press
- Caledonian Record
- Colchester Sun
- The County Courier
- Essex Reporter
- Randolph Herald
- Rutland Herald
- St. Albans Messanger
- Stowe Reporter
- Williston Observer
- WCAX Channel 3
cyberjournalism sources
Archives
The original home of the blog known as 802 Online
Friday, February 25, 2005
Why should libraries offer internet access, anyway?
I came across this in a Feb. 21 post on Jessamyn West's blog. West appeared in that library story I wrote. This doesn't have much to do with Williston's new wi-fi, but she makes an interesting point that I somehow overlooked. I would have linked to her post, by the way, but her permalinks thingy isn't working for me. So here's an excerpt.
From Jessamyn West's librarian.net:
As of mid-2003 17% of Vermont households had broadband. I'm sure that number has shot up, but how high? I've been reading through the Vermont Telecommunications Plan from the end of 2004, and it's fascinating stuff. 66% of Vermonters surveyed in late 2003, early 2004 had Internet access at home. Of them, roughly 25% use cable or DSL with the rest on dial-up, WebTV or other workarounds.. So... a little quick math... and we've got about 15% of Vermonters who have cable Internet or DSL. I'm sure this number has also increased, but how high? That's about 100,000 people more or less. Want to know why it isn't higher? Check out these two graphs I pulled from the report, paraphrased "Why I haven't used the Internet recently" and "Why we're not getting faster Internet at work" What does a library, or a librarian do about this?
Bottom line: nearly half of all Vermonters who are not online do not have access to computers. And not surprisingly, another 20% of those abstainers say they're not online because they just plain don't like computers.
From Jessamyn West's librarian.net:
As of mid-2003 17% of Vermont households had broadband. I'm sure that number has shot up, but how high? I've been reading through the Vermont Telecommunications Plan from the end of 2004, and it's fascinating stuff. 66% of Vermonters surveyed in late 2003, early 2004 had Internet access at home. Of them, roughly 25% use cable or DSL with the rest on dial-up, WebTV or other workarounds.. So... a little quick math... and we've got about 15% of Vermonters who have cable Internet or DSL. I'm sure this number has also increased, but how high? That's about 100,000 people more or less. Want to know why it isn't higher? Check out these two graphs I pulled from the report, paraphrased "Why I haven't used the Internet recently" and "Why we're not getting faster Internet at work" What does a library, or a librarian do about this?
Bottom line: nearly half of all Vermonters who are not online do not have access to computers. And not surprisingly, another 20% of those abstainers say they're not online because they just plain don't like computers.
