Supporting librarians in rural areas.

Nearly 80 percent of all library systems serve rural areas or small towns. Librarians in smaller communities often face the biggest challenges, yet typically have few training opportunities. The foundation conducted workshops for more than 100 librarians serving rural communities in nearly every state. The workshops provided useful tools to help them sustain technology and generate support for public access computing. In a follow-up survey of workshop participants, more than 80 percent reported that they had begun to implement action plans for increasing support for public access computing in their communities.