Kiera Sunderland Covid-19 knocked the world off its axis and left libraries scrambling to figure out how to provide their services digitally. In between learning how to offer reference interviews over the phone and storytime via YouTube, libraries also had to navigate how they could reach members of the community who didn’t have access to the internet, data, or personal devices. This challenge has been dubbed the “digital divide”. The digital divide is defined as “a socioeconomic concept. It is focused on the gap between demographic groups with full access to modern communication and information technology and those with lesser, limited, and no access” (Gale Opposing Viewpoints). The digital divide is much more complex than just distinguishing between the haves and the have-nots in today’s digital age. It is a perplexing societal phenomenon that can include those who have no access to the internet, those who don’t understand how to use the internet even if they have access, and th...
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