Putting libraries online 'shortcut to the future'

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Chris Batt is charged with what is by anyone's standards a gargantuan information technology task.

As director of the People's Network, he has to fulfil a Government promise to give everyone in Britain broadband internet access through their library by next year.

"We're supposed to get 4300 libraries hooked up by the end of 2002, but there are five of us on the team so no worries there," he chuckles.

Mr Batt says it was relatively easy to persuade the Government to part with £170 million ($587 million) for the project.

"They see this as a really cheap way of giving loads of people access to the information society. It's a shortcut to the future."

Of the budget, £100 million will be spent on network infrastructure, including 30,000 terminals plus tables and chairs. A further £20 million will go training 40,000 library workers to a standard known as the European Computer Driving Licence.

Finally, £50 million will go towards providing content, including a digitisation project involving around 400 libraries and museums, which will make parts of their collections available in internet-deliverable form.

Mr Batt says financing the network infrastructure has been the biggest challenge.

"The complexities of channelling £100 million to 209 different municipal organisations meant that took us six months just to develop the funding model."

Negotiating with telco BT (formerly British Telecom) for a special rate to provide each library with a minimum of 2 megabits a second of bandwidth was also tough.

"We got there in the end but, as anyone who has negotiated with a large telco will realise, it was very hard work."

Mr Batt says BT is confident of meeting the 2Mbps bandwidth specification at 93 per cent of the libraries by the deadline, but broadband availability is still as patchy in Britain as in New Zealand.

"If you live in a metropolitan area you can get a 2-megabit connection for £1000 a year, but there are rural communities where you couldn't get anything like that even if you had unlimited money."

We asked Mr Batt how near the project was to completion.

"It depends. About 80 per cent of libraries offer some sort of internet access, but in terms of the 2Mbps bandwidth we are only 40 per cent of the way there. However the money has only been rolling out from our bankers for three or four months and we're only now ramping up.

"We can't say that nine out of 10 people go in to a library and come out as Bill Gates, but there is lots of anecdotal evidence that people are using the PCs in libraries and equipping themselves with the skills to get jobs.

"In one library I know of a cleaner started using the terminals and was soon able to send e-mails to her friends and family as well as surf the net. She said until that point the only thing she had done with the PCs was to dust them."

www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk