The next phase of our U.S. Libraries program will focus on helping libraries sustain public access computing. Our grants will be designed to help libraries and librarians secure the public funding necessary over the long term to upgrade their hardware and connection speeds to provide high-quality access. They will also provide more support to existing intermediaries and work to identify new partners who can help administer future programs. Finally, they will fund more impact research to document the importance of public access computing.

We will focus on the 63 percent of libraries that are at risk of having their public access programs become obsolete, and so we will emphasize strategies that are especially appropriate for rural libraries and librarians.