General Information

The Grant

The New Jersey State Library, an affiliate of Thomas Edison State College, has received a federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) award in the Public Computer Center category.

The award consists of $5.1 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and matching funds of $1.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave an additional $150,000 to the New Jersey State Library to support E-rate technical assistance, which will help sustain the project's services.

The goal of the program is to help in the economic recovery of the state by giving libraries the tools they need to expand services to the unemployed and underemployed by enhancing training opportunities, broadband capability and workstation availability in New Jersey libraries. It is estimated that more than five million New Jersey residents will be served through this initiative over the three years of the grant project.

Project Goals

• Offer affordable pricing for high-speed Internet access services to libraries from the state’s major service providers
• Serve up to an additional 22,500 computer users weekly, offer training for as many as 12,800 residents over the life of the project
• Provide online content and databases to the approximately 440,000 unemployed and 230,000 underemployed residents of New Jersey
• Provide up to 938 new workstations to libraries across the state.

Project Scope

• All public libraries in New Jersey will be able to participate in 4-hour training sessions coordinated by the New Jersey Council of County Colleges' Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development ("The Consortium"). Training will include professional development sessions for library staff and job readiness computer training courses for library patrons.

• All public libraries in New Jersey will also receive access to the Job and Career Accelerator by Learning Express, market research reports from Frost & Sullivan, Career Transitions from Gale Cengage and NJN's Workforce Development Portal.
   
• The State Library's Marketing department will provide promotional materials to public libraries across the state to utilize in advertising job readiness computer courses and electronic resources for library patrons.
   
• 124 libraries will receive additional workstations (PCs or laptops) so that each library will equal or approach the national average of 3.55 public computers per 5,000 of population.

• 79 libraries will receive an upgrade to 10mbps of broadband via Ethernet in conjunction with special discounted service pricing.
   
• E-rate consulting will provided on an as-needed basis.

Timeline

• The grant will run from July 2010 until June 2013.
• Patron and library staff training will run through June 30, 2012.
• Purchase and delivery of additional public computers to 124 libraries will take place from October through December 2011.
• Broadband upgrades for 79 libraries will take place by mid-2011.