Country Librarian

A pilot project has been launched in England to enable 10 rural libraries to offer wireless Internet access. £60,000 (approximately $144, 000 CAD) has been granted to the libraries for the purchase of equipment. While I have a hard time envisioning what "rural" is in such a geographically small country (compared to Canada), I am very interested to see how the pilot turns out. Having Internet "hot spots" and laptops available for lending could be helpful for libraries short on space. Some libraries are having a hard time squeezing in more than 2 workstations into a 800 sq. ft. area and having room left over for other things ... such as books and the like.