The Need
About 53,000 San Diego households lack broadband internet, including 28 percent of residents in underserved communities. Students with home internet access graduate at a six to eight percent higher rate than those who lack access.
As the pandemic highlighted, access to technology is not a luxury — it is a lifeline. Too many San Diego households lack broadband Internet. In the Promise Zone, home to San Diego’s most underserved communities, nearly one in three residents report having no broadband Internet access and 16 percent of households lack computers. Even before the pandemic, the FCC reported that students with internet access at home achieve high school graduation rates higher than those who don’t. Recent reports have noted that the effects of COVID-19-related learning loss will have a lifelong impact, corresponding to an individual’s health and wellbeing, personal finances, crime and incarceration likelihood, and participation in civic life.
Library Solutions
Digital Literacy
Through a partnership with the San Diego Futures Foundation, the library offers digital literacy education and drop-in technical assistance to help patrons with their devices and to expand their technical skills.
Memory Labs
A Mellon Foundation grant to the Library Foundation SD is helping the library expand Digital Memory Lab services throughout San Diego. These labs teach patrons to digitize and save memories currently stored on antiquated media, including VHS and Betamax tapes; 8mm film; 8‑track, reel-to-reel, and other audio tapes; slides and negatives; and floppy disks.
Mellon Foundation support allows underrepresented communities to share their stories and preserve their cultural histories and:
- Adds three additional Digital Memory Labs and upgrades existing labs,
- Creates five new pop-up mobile labs, Implements an inclusive storytelling project with the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, Creates workshops to teach personal archival preservation, and
- Helps the library preserve valuable historical resources in its archives..”
Intisar and Samani received free laptop computers through the library, enabling them to participate in online Library programs and complete schoolwork at home.
Digital Equity/SD Access 4 All
The community continues to have a strong need for innovative virtual programming and digital materials. Enrollment in the library’s online courses (interactive, instructor-led courses in accounting, business, technology, and other topics) is up nearly 300 percent and e‑book circulation is up 133 percent. Because of the digital divide, not all members of the community have access to virtual programs. Through the “SD Access 4 All” initiative, the library is providing free computers to in-need students, offering outdoor computer labs at 10 library locations, expanding the digital collection, and offering mobile hotspots for patron check-out, increasing digital access and reducing the digital divide. Library Foundation support ensures the library has a robust digital collection and can distribute technology to those in need.