91´«Ã½

(CHICAGO) The 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½) is encouraging public libraries to participate in the 2010-2011 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study online survey. The survey provides an important opportunity for libraries to share information on computer and Internet resources and infrastructure, as well as funding, technology training and other uses of public libraries, such as providing public access technology centers in their communities. The current year's online survey, available at , will be available through Nov. 5, 2010.

“This survey is vital to all of us – data from past studies have been used in Congressional testimony, by the Federal Communications Commission and by national and local media,” said 91´«Ã½ Office for Research & Statistics Director Denise M. Davis. “The success of the survey rests largely on the overall and individual state response rates. We encourage all public libraries to log on and help us create the most complete picture possible of technology in our nation's public libraries.”

Recently, study findings have:

• been cited in hundreds of media outlets including USA Today, Governing, the Wall Street Journal and NPR;
• informed the National Broadband Plan and successful library grant applications for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program; and
• been used in Congressional and state-level testimony, as well as in comments to federal agencies.

The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 91´«Ã½, continues work begun by John Carlo Bertot and Charles R. McClure in 1994. The survey is managed by the Center for Library & Information Innovation at the University of Maryland.

More information, including results from the 2009-2010 study, is available online at . A new blog – – and (ala_ors) also share news, findings, insights and free resources from the study.

###