Paper Topic:

Digital Divide

Role of Public Libraries in bridging the Digital Divide

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Role of Public Libraries in bridging the Digital Divide

The Digital Divide

The United States National Telecommunications and Information Administration popularized the term `Digital Divide ' in the mid 1990s to indicate the societal split between those had and those who did not have access to computers and the Internet (Warchauer , 2003 . With the Information and Communications Technology (ICT ) revolution sweeping across the world , the term has since caught the imagination

of social scientists , administrators , media-persons , economists and politicians alike . They have interpreted it in turn as a social , economic and political problem from their respective perspectives , and sought to offer a variety of solutions to `bridge ' the Digital Divide

ICT was initially heralded as a great equalizer . The general impression was that by providing interconnectivity and access to information to all , ICT would provide equal opportunities , and therefore reduce inequalities . But it was soon clear that the `Mathew Effect ' of Merton (1973 ) could come into play and increase the inequalities even more by translating the initial advantages of those who gained early access to computers and the Internet into increasing returns over time i .e . by widening the Digital Divide

The Social and Community Context

The basic problem however lies in defining `Digital Divide . According to Mark (2003 ) any attempt to bridge the Digital Divide without consideration of the social context could lead to failures and frustrations . He cites a project undertaken by the Municipal Government of New Delhi in India through which computer kiosks with dial-up Internet connectivity were set up for the urban poor children in New Delhi . According to the policy of minimal invasive education adopted in the project , there were no teachers or instructors to guide the children in computer usage . The project could not achieve much beyond children learning to play games and use simple applications to paint and draws On the other hand , The Gyandoot Project in rural areas of the state of Madhya Pradesh in India achieved success because of its community orientation . In this case , the use of computers fulfilled social and community needs

The role of public libraries in providing access to computers and the Internet also has to take all these factors into consideration . The responsibility of public libraries does not end with the provision of the equipment for computer and Internet access . Public libraries have to take on the role of the educator and the instructor so that users are able to utilize the ICT services efficiently and effectively . The larger orientation of all such services has to be around the fulfillment of social and community requirements in line with the ideals of social and community informatics

The Five Components of Individual Access

The concept of `Digital Inequality ' as defined by Hargittai (2003 identifies Technical Means , Autonomy of Use , Social Support Network Production of Content Access and Political Access as the five components of individual access

Public libraries therefore have to...

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