![Man in a dark short-sleeved collared shirt standing in front of a heat map with the headline "Illinois Broadband Equity Access and Deployment [BEAD] McLean County - Final BEAD Eligibility' written at the top.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ab927b8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1200x780+0+0/resize/840x546!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F67%2F3c%2F601765bf4db698ebc87e417ee000%2Fanthonygrant.JPG)
It's been true for a while that libraries are about much more than books. That presents an opportunity and a challenge for libraries, especially in rural areas.
Christie Lau is director of the Carlock Library District. It serves nearly 3,000 patrons in northwestern McLean County and parts of Woodford County.
Lau said now more than ever, technology is at the core of what libraries offer. She said the Carlock libraries' digital services for e-books, audio books and TV and movie streams are among their most popular offerings. But many patrons rely on the library for necessities.
“I would say that a significant number of people who come in are coming in not just for grins and giggles,” Lau said. “They are coming in to do something they actually need to have done.”
That may include doing their taxes, printing mailing labels, paying their bills or even working remotely.
Lau said library visitors would do all this from home, but can't because of internet dead spots where many of them live.
Many libraries loan out hot spots — devices that are supposed to give you an internet connection anywhere. Lau said that's not always the case in her district.
“The cell service for one of those in rural areas is still not as good as it could be. We don’t know how great they would be so we have not invested in them,” Lau said.
Rural residents aren't the only people who may lack digital access. The state has identified eight populations that historically have limited access to digital technology: rural residents, people of low income, and advanced age, veterans, people with disabilities, racial or ethnic minorities, those with language barriers, and people who are incarcerated.
Bloomington Public Library Director Jeanne Hamilton said nearly one-fourth of McLean County's population fits into one of more of those categories. She fears they are being left behind in the 21st century economy.
“So much now is digital. So that really creates a gap for people who don’t have access to internet or don’t have internet skills,” she said.
So, Hamilton worked with all 14 libraries in McLean County to apply for a digital literacy grant to help pay for 140 hotspots to go to those libraries, and to pay for two full-time digital navigators, who would have provided digital support to library patrons across the county through one-on-one consultations and classes.
McLean County Assistant Administrator Anthony Grant said the county appeared to be in great shape to get a nearly $1 million federal grant. He became concerned when he saw a social media post from President Trump in early May saying he was going to end the Digital Equity Act.
Trump called the program a “racist and illegal $2.5 billion dollar giveaway.”
To Grant, the key word appears to be equity.
“Since this [funding] did have the word equity in it, we thought that this could potentially be in place [for elimination], which is really unfortunate because this is a program that would have helped a lot of people,” Grant said.
The Illinois Office of Broadband soon told the county there would be no funding.
The Trump administration has aggressively targeted programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] for elimination.
Grant said he understands efforts to root out waste, fraud and abuse that the Trump administration has prioritized — but this digital equity grant is none of those things.
“This is not one of those situations that were targeted toward somebody because of their ethnicity or anything along those lines," he said. “It’s really a job development tool that would have impacted everybody.
“Unfortunately, it’s going to hit our rural parts of our county and probably most of the nation very heavily.”
Grant has another frustration. The funding for the digital equity effort came from the 2021 infrastructure law. Had the Biden administration delivered that money in the three years before President Biden left office, it may not be an issue now.
“I don’t want to say it was dragging of the feet. I really don’t know the dynamics that were at play. Obviously, you have to write rules that govern this type of spending. It does feel like if there was a little more urgency this work could have gotten done,” Grant said.
Broadband uncertain
The Biden administration also has faced criticism for failing to deliver broadband to rural areas across the country. Nearly four years after the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment [BEAD] program was created, it's still largely in the planning stages.
Grant said efforts to deliver reliable high-speed internet throughout the county could now be upended.
“The analogy I keep using is if Washington decides to give it a haircut, we’ll be perfectly fine. They are probably going to make changes around certain areas, maybe labor and environmental [requirements], some of those types of issues. But if they go through and remove the fiber preference, that would be like a buzz cut and that would be a potential huge concern,” Grant said.
Fiber preference refers to fiber optic broadband that would be run underground throughout the county.
The federal government has now notified the county it has shifted to what it calls a “technology neutral” stance.
Critics have worried this may be an effort to shift the $42 billion broadband program to Elon Musk's Starlink. It's not clear whether Trump's recent fallout with Musk might change that.
Grant said he wonders what the real reasons are for the shift to satellite.
“It definitely has the appearance of some impropriety,” he said.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen also has been a vocal advocate for fiber over satellite. He said during a recent visit to Bloomington-Normal that fiber is the more equitable solution.
“I look at some of our rural communities and I heard from moms and dads during the pandemic, when they moved school back home, now we have to drive kids to a McDonalds so that we can get Wi-Fi in the parking lot. That’s not good enough,” Sorensen said.
Grant said he's not only worried about sacrificing reliability and durability. He said McLean County would miss out on a projected $30 million investment to serve the county's digital needs for the next 50 years.
“When you install fiber, you have labor that goes into that. Then you have the fiber that’s in the ground that would be used in the future. That’s an investment that’s being made here,” he said. “If you go over to satellite, we’re missing out on all that development.”
Plus, Grant said the first question business prospects often ask when they consider locating in McLean County is “Where's the fiber?"
The government, he said, needs to fund rural infrastructure because internet service providers don't consider it financially viable to run lines where fewer people live.
That may be changing. Grant said service providers are setting up service in smaller villages like Danvers and Stanford. He hopes to see that spread to other smaller communities.
So while some rural residents will soon get faster internet connections, progress may come much slower for the rest of rural McLean County.
