Connecting to the Internet: The challenge for Canada's county and regionallibraries

A previous survey, in 1995, revealed that only 3% of Canada's regional and country library systems provided public Internet access. The present survey showed that 67% of these libraries provided access and that connectivity w as proceeding rapidly despite the geographical, technical, and financial di fficulties faced by systems with large geographical areas and numerous memb ers from different municipal or county jurisdictions. Library directors ind icated that using the World Wide Web as a reference tool was the most usefu l staff application of the Internet and that this function was most appreci ated in small branches located far from adequate reference collections. Fun ding for initial connectivity set-up costs came mainly from federal and pro vincial grants and from existing library budgets, Directors expected librar y budgets to be the primary funding source for ongoing Internet costs, a po tentially difficult situation because of continuing fiscal shortfalls and i ncreasing technical expenses. The Internet has ameliorated some of the long -distance communications problems unique to county and regional systems, bu t many difficulties remain.