Internet Library

Slide 4 of 16

There are knowledge prerequisites to using the Internet. For all that the Internet itself is becoming more user-friendly, you have to have some facility with the technology. In addition, the lingua franca of the Internet is English. About 2/3 of the computers on the Internet are in the U.S. If you look at the top 6 countries (in terms of numbers of computers on the Internet) you see:

U.S., Germany, Japan, Canada, UK, Australia

This top list is clearly dominated by the Egnlish-speaking world even though these aren't necessarily the most populous nor most technically advanced countries in the world. At an especially great disadvantage are those people whose language does not use the latin alphabet but instead is written in ideograms or in a cursive script.

Libraries carry materials in the languages of the community they serve. My local branch library has materials in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. And there are literacy classes available in the library itself for anyone who wants to gain reading skills.