id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
ital-13775	Ritzo, Chris; Rhinesmith, Colin; Jiang, Jie	Measuring Library Broadband Networks to Address Knowledge Gaps and Data Caps	2022-09-19	23	.pdf	application/pdf	8174	297	30	As Bertot, Real, and Jaeger concluded, one of the big challenges that public libraries have been dealing with is that the speed of public library internet connections “can vary significantly according to local population density.”9 During the first phase, we organized a “participatory design” workshop with our 10 first-year public libraries who agreed to serve as part of our research panel on the project.13 Findings from our analysis of the qualitative data gathered during the workshop revealed that public libraries wanted access to broadband measurement data in order to: (1) better communicate with their patrons about their library’s broadband connectivity, (2) respond to their communities’ digital needs, and (3) justify the importance of robust internet connectivity to their funders.14 Our analysis revealed early on in the project that knowledge gaps existed around the performance of public library broadband networks, patron and staff experiences using the library’s internet connection, and the meaning and value of measurements such as speed tests.	cache/ital-13775.pdf	txt/ital-13775.txt