Category: Civic Participation

The Importance of Libraries for Combatting Digital Exclusion   

11/08/2023 

Background

Digital exclusion refers to a lack of access to the internet, a lack of digital skills, or a failure to benefit from internet use (Scheerder, van Deursen, and van Dijk, 2017). This policy brief will describe the work being done by public libraries to mitigate the effects of digital exclusion, and the challenges they face. The variety of types of support needed to tackle this complex issue requires more funding and staff, and the mounting expectations and dwindling funding for local services recently have made this exceedingly difficult. To demonstrate this, this research brief utilises data from Leeds and Calderdale councils to compare library provision in a large Northern city and a more rural local authority. Libraries being the first port of call for digitally excluded people is completely in line with their defining principle; that access to information is a human right. However, for libraries to be able to effectively challenge digital exclusion, they need to be recognised as strongholds for the right to information for the most vulnerable people in society, and receive adequate funding to provide consistent support at every library in the UK.

Libraries’ Current Role in Combatting Digital Exclusion

Although this research brief unpacks several critical challenges, it is important not to devalue the impressive work libraries are currently doing to support digital inclusion. Already, libraries do more than nearly any other institution by simply providing free access to computers. Oxfordshire County libraries have run a “digital helper volunteer programme” since 2017, where users book 30 minute one-to-one slots with a volunteer who supports them with a specific query (Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 6). Other local authorities run similar schemes, with nearly 200,000 people supported by digital skills sessions in libraries in 2014-15 (Stopforth, 2015).

The Good Things Foundation (previously ‘Tinder Foundation’) funded 16 library services during a period of six months to support over 16,000 people through a variety of programmes, including digital skills sessions in large groups, one-to-one sessions, and loaning of devices within the library or in users’ homes (Tinder Foundation, 2016; Wagg, 2016). Efforts to tackle digital exclusion often fall to libraries because libraries are almost unique in modern society. The example in Allman, Blank, and Wong’s (2021, p. 3) report, where a homeless man asks to borrow a phone charger from the library, speaks to this; if he had made the same request in a Starbucks, he would have been asked to leave, and he would have risked arrest by asking at a police station. Most places in the public sphere are private businesses, and the public services that are present are often hostile, especially to vulnerable people. In contrast, libraries are described by users as safe (Allman, Blank and Wong, 2021, pp. 14, 19) and welcoming (Ruthven, Robinson, and McMenemy, 2022, pp. 6-8), and are free to access (Arts Council England, 2014, p. 1; Allman, Blank and Wong, 2021, p. 7).

Libraries are one of few places in the public sphere where anyone can walk in and ask for help, for free, without fear. This inevitably means libraries will be tasked with helping vulnerable people. This is what they are there for; libraries exist to make information available to everyone, regardless of income, ability, or status (Jaeger, Wentz, and Bertot, 2017, pp. 58-9, 63). Thus, libraries are naturally placed to address digital exclusion. Yet, libraries’ valuable work is currently undermined by a variety of political and financial factors.

Challenges Faced by Public Libraries

Libraries currently lack the staff and funding to successfully coordinate a wide enough variety of digital inclusion support programmes and activities. ‘Digital exclusion’ encompasses both a lack of internet access and lack of digital skills (Scheerder, van Deursen, and van Dijk, 2017), which require robust interventions. An absence of digital skills is rarely overcome without one-to-one help (Age UK, 2021, p. 3; Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 18); strikingly few older people began using the internet during the pandemic (Age UK, 2021, p. 3) despite services moving online (Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 19; Ruthven, Robinson, and McMenemy, 2022, p. 5).

In contrast, people with adequate digital skills but no home internet access benefit more from unrestricted, independent device use; this allows them to use the internet in an exploratory and creative way, rather than just for necessary tasks (Robinson, 2009), resulting in greater benefits (Livingstone and Helsper, 2007, pp. 685-686; Robinson et al., 2020). At the same time, very few of the programmes backed by the Library Digital Inclusion Fund allowed users to bring devices home (Tinder Foundation, 2016, pp. 4, 11). Moreover, library computers typically have time limits, some as short as 70 minutes per day (Calderdale Council, 2023), restricted to (often limited) library opening hours (Calvert, 2023). Thus, while most of the Library Digital Inclusion Fund programmes saw positive results (Tinder Foundation, 2016, p. 7), not every digitally excluded person could benefit from each programme, and most areas were not able to provide multiple types of support at once due to lack of staff and funding; the Library Digital Inclusion Fund projects struggled with staff loss due to cuts (Tinder Foundation, 2016, p. 5). Libraries are conflicted, wanting to help more people while knowing they barely have funding or staff to support their current users (Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 18).

The variation is a result of excessive responsibility being placed on local authorities and libraries without adequate funding, dating back to the coalition government which granted more responsibility to councils while simultaneously pursuing austerity (Eagle, Jones, and Grieg, 2017, pp. 55-56). Government policies “encourage all library services to become the ‘go-to’ provider of digital access, training and support” (Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 2016, p. 25) and praise libraries for their work tackling digital exclusion (Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 2016, p. 72; Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Bradley, 2017, sec. 2). Yet, spending on libraries has dropped by nearly a third since 2009/10, resulting in staff-loss and further dependence on volunteers (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, 2019).

We can observe this pattern in other policy areas; the government devolved public health to councils in 2013 (Local Government Association, 2022), but has since cut public health grants to councils by 24% per capita in real terms (Finch, Marshall, and Bunbury, 2021). Public services are forced to cut back on essential functions (Chartered Trading Standards Institute, 2019, p. 21), creating a postcode lottery with unacceptable variation in service quality between areas. Inadequate funding has forced decision-makers to prioritise larger urban libraries, with more provincial libraries being overlooked, a process known as “rationalisation” (Berthoud and Brown, 1981, p. 270). Rationalisation disproportionately affects those most likely to be digitally excluded (Berthoud and Brown, 1981, p. 270; Arts Council England, 2014, p. 33; Serafino, 2019, sec. 6; Reddick et al., 2020, p. 10; Holmes and Burgess, 2022, p. 5). For example, The Central Library has the longest opening hours of all Leeds libraries (Calvert, 2023), and provided both one-to-one digital skills sessions in users’ homes and 3-week device loans as part of the Library Digital Inclusion Fund initiative (Tinder Foundation, 2016, p. 11). However, this may not help someone in Scholes, whose local library is open only 9 hours a week (Leeds City Council, [no date]).

In more rural Calderdale, the picture worsens; only the Central Library is open over 40 hours a week, and the average library opening hours per week is 35 (Calvert, 2023). This variation is the inevitable consequence of a “small area based approach” and reliance on volunteers, resulting in unevenly distributed funding and manpower (Berthoud and Brown, 1981, pp. 274, 279). Thus, we see a patchwork of temporary local programmes scattered around the country (Berthoud and Brown, 1981, pp. 264, 274; Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 7), rather than reliable national provision at every library. The programmes mentioned support thousands of people, but do not make a meaningful difference to the 1.5m UK households without internet access (Ofcom, 2021), or the 11 million people who lack basic digital skills (Serafino, 2019, p. 4).

The short opening hours and variation in provision between libraries keeps the people most likely to be digitally excluded from accessing help. Digital exclusion is “embedded in a person’s offline circumstances” (Helsper, 2012, p. 405), such as poverty (Reddick et al., 2020, p. 10), disability (Arts Council England, 2014, p. 33), old age (Serafino, 2019, sec. 6), and housing inequality (Holmes and Burgess, 2022, p. 5), but libraries rarely use the terminology of rights and social justice to describe their work (Jaeger, Wentz, and Bertot, 2017, pp. 63-64). Digital inclusion is often framed in terms of employment and economic growth (Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 2022), but rarely in terms of a right to access the internet, long recognised by the United Nations (General Assembly, 1948, art. 19, 2006, art. 21; Human Rights Council, 2011, p. 7), without which modern society is effectively inaccessible. As revealed by the Oxfordshire programme, a lack of digital footprints (such as an email address) typically correlated with other underlying socio-economic disadvantages. This put additional pressure on those volunteers that sought to help a range of digitally excluded people – with a range of diverse needs – all within a 30 minute timeslot without adequate training to work with people who are homeless, disabled, or have mental health issues (Jaeger, Wentz, and Bertot, 2017, p. 24; Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, pp. 8, 18).

Because many government services have become “digital by default” since 2012 (Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 6), it is essential that digitally excluded people can find support at every library, because those most likely to be digitally excluded are also the most likely to rely on services (Yates, Kirby and Lockley, 2015), who in turn are more likely to lack mobility (Moseley and Packman, 1986, p. 208). It is thus unacceptable to only reach people who can access the largest central library in a local authority, despite measures like outreach sessions in user’s homes being more costly (Tinder Foundation, 2016, p. 5). When local authorities prioritise central libraries and cut opening hours or services at others, as in Calderdale and Leeds (Tinder Foundation, 2016, p. 11; Calvert, 2023), this impacts, for example, older people, who spend more time in their immediate local area (Scharf, Phillipson, and Smith, 2004, p. 85) and rely more on public transport (Walker and Walker, 2005, pp. 140-142). Around 33% of disabled people have never used the internet, may only be able to reach their closest local library, (Arts Council England, 2014, p. 33), and are likely to rely on ‘digital by default’ welfare services (Kirk-Wade, 2022, p. 24). Clearly, the digital support offered by libraries is essential for vulnerable people in society to access essential public services, and yet the imbalance in provision between large central libraries and other libraries persists, despite its adverse effects on those already negatively impacted by the digital divide.

Conclusion

In conclusion, libraries are trying valiantly to combat digital exclusion, but it is unreasonable for the government to foist this responsibility on them without adequate funding. This is the result of  decision-makers treating digital exclusion as a “standalone” issue (Holmes and Burgess, 2022, pp. 3-4) affecting mostly employers, rather than a complex social justice issue connected to deep inequalities. This is disappointing, because it makes complete sense for libraries to be at the forefront of combatting digital exclusion; they are “hubs for literacy” (Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 20), and they have historically been forerunners in reaching out to disabled, homeless, elderly, and low-income people (Jaeger, Wentz, and Bertot, 2017, pp. 58-59, 64). Supporting digitally excluded people at an institution they already trust is strategically beneficial, as demonstrated by people already seeking digital support at libraries (Allman, Blank, and Wong, 2021, p. 6). However, for this to meaningfully impact all digitally excluded people, all libraries need the funding to extend opening hours and coordinate both loaning devices and providing one-to-one support sessions. Digital exclusion can derail participation in modern society, and without the political will to fund libraries, the current patchwork of localised, temporary programmes will not successfully address this complex issue.

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