2021-360-Library-SLNC adapts-Brindging service Gaps

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SLNC Adapts Application Orange County Public Library Page 1 of 9 1. Title Bridging Service Gaps 2. Users and Needs Who are the current or potential library users this project will benefit? State the need (problem) and describe how the need was determined. Orange County Information Technologies created a map using data from ISPs and NC broadband efforts that identified over 5,000 households as currently unserved or underserved with broadband services. The county has a Broadband Taskforce to investigate ways to increase broadband access to these areas. This increased access initiatve will be a long- term solution that will take years to implement. Until that is completed, those residents will need help accessing the internet. According to the NC Broadband Indices1, in Orange County 7.3% of households (~3,900 households) have no internet access and 5.68% (~3,000 households) have no computer at home. However, some census tracts have as high as 11.44% of homes with no computer. Four census tracts have 10% or more of homes with no computers. This data measures if households have at least one computer at home but does not capture the ratio of household members to devices. We can expect that some households with one or more computer may still benefit from extra devices being available as the trend continues for education, job applications and other services to move online. The residents where those two needs intersect, lack of quality internet access and few or no computers will benefit most from this project. The map in Appendix B shows areas in the county with the highest number of households with no computers overlaid with the areas found to be underserved by broadband. These will be the households best served by having a hotspot and Chromebook packaged together. There are no direct measurements available to gauge the need for technology instruction. However, by looking at the population of residents age 65 and over as seen in Table 1, we can see that this subsection of the population has increased as a proportion of the total population by just shy of 5% since 2010. Given this, the library can expect an increase need for assistance to people managing the fast pace of technology change and the continued transition to online services. This population has increased significantly in the county and have historically comprised the core of patrons attending computer instruction classes in our buildings. YEAR TOTAL POPULATION OVER AGE 65 % OF POPULATION 65+ 4/1/2010 Census population 133,801 12,889 9.63% 7/1/2019 population estimate 148,476 21,654 14.58% Table 1: Orange County aged 65+ population increase since 2010. Source: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-counties-detail.html 1 https://www.ncbroadband.gov/data-reports/nc-broadband-indices DocuSign Envelope ID: 799D10E1-6741-4B45-AA95-1D8D63F71D71