This week at BlogJunction has been full of additions on previous posts, here and elsewhere. It’s a theme. We’re building something.
Today’s post builds on an earlier announcement about a webinar hosted by ALA’s Washington Office – How to Connect (to federal broadband funds BTOP or BIP). The archive is not yet posted but the presentation materials are posted at ALA’s Broadband Resources page. In this week’s Technology Essentials online conference hosted by WebJunction, Wendy Knapp and Mary Alice Ball presented on Funding for Broadband: Indiana and Beyond. Their presentation reconnected me personally to this issue so critical to public access to information, especially important for libraries where they are the only option for such access in their communities.
The most urgent message in their presentation was this: there is federal support for this and every year schools and libraries are not accessing it.
It’s no wonder. It’s a challenging application process, especially if you’re not supported in the effort by a larger organization like state library or regional consortia. But the application process for the second and last round of funding begins on February 16 and ends on March 15. I can vouch for the fact that federal grant application processes are more challenging than the others I’ve worked with. But this application process has supposedly been streamlined since the first round, so don’t let that scare you away. It wouldn’t hurt to check out the ALA webinar once it is posted or check out the workshop recordings from regional workshops on both programs. Or take a look at Stephanie Gerding’s Library Grant 101 materials if this is a first grant application process.
All that said, here’s the bottom line:
The Recovery Act appropriated $7.2 billion and directed the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the U.S., increase jobs, spur investments in technology and infrastructure, and provide long-term economic benefits. The result is the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).
BIP will make loans and grants for broadband infrastructure projects in rural areas.
BTOP will provide grants to fund broadband infrastructure, public computer centers and sustainable broadband adoption projects.
A very nice summary of BIP’s process was presented at the webinar, and will give you a high-level overview of the process and how to complete a successful application. Everything you need to know about the official application process is at BroadbandUSA.gov.
If you’d like to get more involved in broadband access issues, our presenters suggested working with ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP). Thank you to these presenters for reminding me how important this topic is for rural libraries! I’d love to hear your experiences with any of these programs…is there more we should be doing to help each other with this process? Let us know…