The Haves and the Havenots

The final of the four articles reviewed is 'Encouraging the digital economy and digital citizenship' by Roxanne Missingham (Missingham, 2009).

Unlike the other three articles, Missingham's paper makes no mention of Web 2.0, its concepts, or influence, instead focussing on the entirely different issue of the digital revolution – namely the digital divide, and what libraries can do to bridge it.
The digital divide refers to the widening gap between those with access to web resources, and the large number of people, especially in rural and regional Australia, who do not.

The reasons for this inequality come down to three issues:

1)Connectivity: libraries and individuals in many areas outside the capital cities lack affordable internet access or infrastructure.
2)Content: Internet users, with the flood of information available to them, need ways of discerning its quality and reliability.
3)Capability: To be able to take advantage of internet access, computer and general literacy skills are needed on the part of individuals and their supporting services.

The paper details an attempt to rectify these problems. In May 2007, a collective of libraries launched Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) http://era.nla.gov.au/index.html, with the aim of providing a database of websites with reliable information in areas of education, health, community and business, which it is hoped will deliver both quality content and increase the literacy skills of its users, enabling them to participate in the digital economy. This approach relies on the Federal Government's planned National Broadband Network, which it is hoped will address problems of connectivity.

Although these actions, properly implemented, will have some impact on the issues identified, they overlook problems of library infrastructure, which the author, in speaking of only one of the issues, otherwise fails to address. Missingham quotes from a Mallacoota resident's senate submission which states that “the town's public library is a mobile bus” visiting every second Wednesday (Brandl, 2002, (as cited in Missingham, 2009, p. 390)). In areas with no permanent library, where access to resources is available only once a fortnight when a bus rolls into town, a broadband cable and reliable content is not going to help residents lacking a public space and points of access. Funding to address these basic needs is apparently not forthcoming, despite the obvious need.

Additionally, although a national database as proposed in the ERA plans may help capability, again a lack of staff in regional libraries to run classes on the basics of computer use will not help those whose access has been so limited that they lack even the skills to turn on a computer and conduct an internet search, skills which are surely taken for granted in more privileged areas.

Though written in plain English, the paper is none the less illogically structured, providing many statistics in the beginning to back up issues which are only later explained. None the less, it raises very real and valid points which those living in metropolitan areas of Australia can easily forget.


References

Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) http://era.nla.gov.au
          /index.html

Missingham, R. (2009). Encouraging the digital economy and
          digital citizenship. Australian Library Journal, 58(4), 386-399.
          Retrieved from
          http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.csu.edu.au
          /documentSummary;dn=201000813;res=APAFT