[Edit: As pointed out in the comments to this post and a Globe & Mail follow-up, they backed down on this announcement within a day.]
The Harper Conservatives are quietly cutting funding for any organization within 25 km of a public library that offers public Internet access via the long-standing Community Access Program. This could include community centres, senior centres, hospitals…and even including other public libraries in smaller communities if they're within 25 km of a library that has CAP computers in a larger community.
This is terrible decision for so many reasons – especially given the small cost of providing Internet at these sites (a few grand per year). As you know, I worked for a rural system that had maybe half a dozen libraries within 25 km of Regina – not to mention how the majority of our smallest branches were within 25 km of a larger centre – villages near towns and whatnot.
If this change comes to pass, everyone in those smaller communities could end up losing the free public access the library provides to the community. Not everyone owns a computer and not everyone gets into Regina or the next largest community on a regular basis. And with more and more of our information mainly (or only) available online, there is a real danger of widening the already gaping chasm that is the digital divide between larger and smaller centres across Canada.
(via Reddit of all places!)
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