Libraries are key to combating digital exclusion

As research lead on Tinder Foundation’s Library Digital Inclusion Fund action research project, I’ve travelled up and down the country visiting the 16 library services participating in the project. I’ve been bowled over by the dedication of library staff, and the innovation I’ve seen on the ground in getting library and digital services out to some of the hardest to reach individuals and communities.

We’ve learned that libraries are ideally placed to engage these audiences – but that in order to do so they’ve had to think a bit differently.

Delivering in over 200 library branches in both rural and urban areas, and in a variety of outreach locations, the Library Digital Inclusion Fund supported over 1,600 digitally excluded people to improve their basic digital skills. The full research report can be found on the Tinder Foundation website, but here’s a summary of some of our key findings below:

1. Partnerships are key to help libraries reach and support new audiences

Newcastle City Library partnered with a housing association and delivered sessions to tenants in the central library. Doncaster Libraries teamed up with their local authority’s digital and marketing teams to help ‘market’ digital inclusion, while Cumbria Libraries partnered with a local college whose health and social care students helped deliver sessions to adults with physical disabilities and learning disabilities (see case studies for more information).

2. Mobile equipment is needed to deliver outreach sessions, and engage older or more vulnerable groups

Mobile devices such as WiFi-enabled tablets and laptops and mobile WiFi hotspots made it possible to take the library service out into the community, enabling libraries to deliver in outreach locations such as hospitals, churches, foodbanks, and local community centres. Leeds Central Library delivered sessions by lending tablets to housebound learners for use in their own homes, and Doncaster libraries delivered digital skills sessions in a social enterprise that provides support for unemployed adults with learning difficulties. These audiences benefited from the intuitive, touch-screen interface, which they found easier to handle than a keyboard and mouse.

3. Libraries need to collect robust data to track the progress of their learners and programmes and demonstrate their impact

Through the project our 16 library research partners recorded and tracked the progress of their learners and collected rich management information using Tinder Foundation’s online platform Learn My Way, which automatically captures data on learners’ activity, and online tutor return tool CaptureIT. It was the first time many had collected data in this way, and it enabled services to evidence the impact of their activities. This is increasingly important during a time of both austerity and growing demand – with libraries facing both cuts and an influx of jobseekers and other service users needing support to access online services.

4. By helping to move people from face-to-face or telephone services to digital, libraries can help save significant amounts of money

We identified potential savings to local and national government in the areas where the 16 library services participating in the project are located. Based on what we know about the way our learners shift from using face-to-face and telephone services to online channels, we would expect potential cost savings of more than £800,000 per year just through the project beneficiaries alone. If similar low-scale activities to those which took place throughout the project were implemented across all 151 library services in England, a potential £7.5m per year of cost savings could be achieved.

5. Libraries’ experience in managing volunteers is invaluable in delivering effective digital inclusion support

Libraries’ experience of coordinating teams of volunteers was vital in providing the often high levels of support new and vulnerable learners required. In total, 75% of the libraries we worked with recruited volunteers as digital champions to increase their capacity to deliver digital skills, and 25% recruited student volunteers, from local educational institutions, such as colleges and universities, who provided one-to-one inter-generational support.

In conclusion, libraries have great potential to support digital inclusion, but this project made it very clear that to do so, they must do more than book loans, and placing a few computers in the corner. Doing so can help support people, communities, and in the end – libraries themselves.