EQUALIZING ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC NETWORKED RESOURCES - A MODEL FOR RURAL LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED-STATES

Rural libraries and patrons have always suffered more because of limit ed access to information than their metropolitan counterparts. Librari es in rural settings have had to deal with the difficulties of working with more limited budgets and smaller collections serving populations distributed over larger areas. With the rapid development of networke d resources and access tools available over the Internet, which are mo st easily accessible in metropolitan areas, disparities in access to i nformation are growing even larger. Instead of widening the rift betwe en metropolitan and rural library users, the new telecommunications te chnologies could bridge the distance, providing more equalized access to the wealth of human knowledge to rural library communities. This ar ticle provides an overview of the current state of networking technolo gy in rural libraries and describes a model for educating rural librar ians in the new technologies that will enhance library service to rura l communities.