What’s New on Broadband

From the desk of Rand Simmons Jan Walsh and I attended a conference call hosted by COSLA (Chief Officers of State Library Agencies) and the American Library Association Washington Office (ALA WO). Here are some items from the notes I took that may be of interest to you:

• ALA created a document outlining how the construction funds can be used for libraries called “Library Construction and ARRA.” The US Dept. of Education recently published guidance on located at http://www.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/applicant.html. Many states, including Washington, commented that the governor’s fund is already spoken for in their state. However, ALA WO encouraged the State Libraries to continue to advocate on behalf of libraries and encourage grassroots people to advocate as well. They stated that stimulus funds CAN be used for new shovel-ready construction including construction of public libraries. But it is up to governor to determine how to use the funding.

Regarding broadband:

• ALA Washington Office submitted public comment to both the US Department of Commerce (NTIA) and US Department of Agriculture (RUS)
• Microsoft also made public comment around it's theme of "all schools, libraries, and hospitals should be fiberized"
• ALA WO is thinking of applying for broadband funding but it is holding judgment pending publication of program rules by NTIA and RUS. There was a plea to ALA WO to not compete with local libraries.
• FCC has issued an inquiry regarding a National Broadband plan. The FCC press release is located at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-289900A1.doc. The Notice of Inquiry is located at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-09-31A1.doc. ALA WO will respond with comments in June discussing why libraries are the right choice and how e-rate has worked in the past and will continue to work.

I asked the question as to how the state priorities figure in terms of allocation of the broadband funding. The stakeholder meeting at which Jan made public comment (see my April 20th blog post) was to help Governor Gregoire determine priorities for Washington state. It is unclear, yet, about how the allocation of broadband funding at the federal level will be affected by the governors' priorities. Again, everyone is waiting on the guidelines from NTIA and RUS to be released. And, it's anyone's guess as to when the window of opportunity to apply will open. ALA WO expects the "rules" to be released soon - whatever soon means. Mixing metaphors, there will be 3 waves of opportunity. The first may be as early as June 2009 with another to be in the fall. ALA WO's best guess is that there will be a 4 - 6 week application window! Applications will no doubt need to be submitted through http://grants.gov which requires registration -- and there is a bit of a learning curve. ALA WO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are co-hosting a meeting on stimulus funding May 12 in conjunction with National Library Legislative Day (Washington, D.C.). Jan and I will attend. The next meeting will be on May 6, 2009.