Building the Library’s Digital Lifeline: Expanding Digital Equity and Access in Philadelphia

For the past decade, the City of Philadelphia has worked in partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia to expand digital access to Philadelphians without computer and broadband access. Starting with a federal broadband initiative in 2010, Philadelphia has increased access to households without internet access through computing centers and expanded wireless and broadband access initiatives. The role of the library has been essential to provide services, public computing, digital literacy training, and connections to other city agencies.

The past year has further revealed the ways in which libraries are important partners in digital access. The library space has long served as a lifeline for community members in need of resources essential to applying for jobs, understanding and filing important forms, and having access to computing, broadband service, and printing. But libraries now must also play a role in expanding the two foundational components of digital access: access to mobile technology and access to programming that can bridge what some scholars call the “digital skills gap.”

This program presents an integrated vision from one large urban library system, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and is frank about not only the opportunities of digital access initiatives at libraries, but also the challenges in providing the many forms of access necessary for library patrons to take advantage of digital empowerment with their own devices and the knowledge and skills to use them.

We will model the three basic components of our vision for digital access: system-wide technology investment, virtually-based digital literacy programming and support, and locally based hybrid models for in-person digital literacy support. Each of our four presenters can speak to an important element of this vision, from large-scale initiatives to expand home computing and wifi access through a hotspot lending program to hyperlocal programming that connects to specific community needs.

Presenters will focus on transferable takeaways from their experiences building a vision for digital equity that focuses on the connections between expanding access and coordinating adult education and workforce development programming around digital equity goals. We will explore all of the following learnings with our presenters:
* Addressing the unique challenges of implementing wide-scale device lending programs.
* Identifying promising practices in developing library partnerships and resource guides for patrons and job-seekers.
* Differentiating audiences for different kinds of virtual programming--who can “hop on a Zoom” and who needs a different approach?
* Building programming from the “bottom up” at the library staff level through the development of professional learning communities.

The Free Library of Philadelphia’s model has been adaptive and flexible to meet the changing digital access needs of patrons. As circumstances in the library system throughout the pandemic change, FLP has pivoted to be as inclusive and equitable as possible by enrolling stakeholders at all levels of the institution, from administrators to staff. We believe that some of our guiding principles will be useful for other libraries, particularly library systems in areas with high low-digital-literacy populations and high unemployment, to imagine their own models for change in making digital equity a reality in their own communities.