Digital Divides inside Public Libraries: Statistical Evidence from Iowa

Abstract

Despite the widespread belief that we are living in the age of the Internet, the digitized world is divided and complex. Owing to the shortage of infrastructure, the population and places of socioeconomic disadvantage are deprived of access to high-speed internet services. This inequality deteriorated during the Covid-19 pandemic. When many countries employed shortor long-term lock-down policies, their compatriots had to stay indoors and communicate with the outside world through the internet. For public libraries in the United States, the collection of electronic resources became unprecedentedly significant for its public services, especially during shorter-orlonger lock-down periods in different states across America in 2020 and 2021. Contrary to their physical counterparts, electronic resources are easily accessed remotely. The internet became an important source for patrons when they were required to stay at home while requesting reliable health information during the pandemic. While patrons could retrieve relevant information through Google and social media, the role public libraries played as the steward of trustworthy and true information was not substitutable. However, as shown in an earlier study, public libraries in Iowa could not provide reliable health information to rural, urban, or metropolitan residents equally (Wan, 2020; Wan, 2021). Situated in the proliferation of academic literature regarding the relations between the digital divide and public libraries in the United States, this argument for the existence of unequal access to reliable information inside public libraries is unusual. During the pandemic, an increasing number of studies demonstrated that public libraries across nations could resolve the catastrophic influence of the digital divide. Morgan Adle et al. highlights public libraries’ achievements in “helping to bridge the digital divide through efforts such as offering Wi-Fi in library parking lots and via bookmobiles that travel throughout the community” (Adle et al., 2023). Brian Real’s case study of public libraries in Connecticut demonstrates how they “pivoted to increase the types of digital inclusion assistance they offered patrons through telephone and online formats” (Real, 2021). However, all these scholars are prone to treating “public libraries” as monolithic social institutions while overlooking the diversity of local communities libraries serve. It is still a puzzle whether libraries in small and large communities could provide equal electronic resources. The inequality of electronic resources in public libraries became complicated during this age of misinformation. While it becomes easier to access internet services, it is still difficult to access sufficient reliable information in some public libraries. Our earlier findings disclose the digital divide in the distribution of public libraries’ electronic resources in different types/sizes of communities in Iowa, which demonstrates the significant difference between large cities and small towns. Concerned about further examining the efficiency of the relations between the local population and access to reliable information in Iowa’s public libraries by supplemental statistical evidence, this study applies the quantitative methodology in assessing the influence of public libraries on the digital divide. We posited the following hypotheses: 1) the population of the community served by public libraries in Iowa is positively statistically associated with their collection of electronic resources; 2) the relations between different types of electronic resources and populations are always positive.