 So digital poverty is very much a growing problem, and I think for all of us, we are perhaps aware of it beforehand, but the pandemic has really exposed this as a really significant issue. And that a significant proportion of the UK are digitally excluded for even not having internet access or really low levels of digital literacy. I hope that during today's conversation will explore a little further what digital poverty is, what the role of libraries is in combating this and how we collectively can also respond. So I'm really looking forward to this and also looking forward to not just hearing from the panel but also having your contributions and hearing from you. And thinking around about digital poverty. I really like the Office of Students definition and it really chimes with me when I'm thinking around about it. And its definition is that a student is suffering from digital poverty if they do not have access to appropriate hardware, software, reliable access to the internet, technical support, a trained teacher or instructor or access to skills development and an appropriate study space. And while perhaps not all of that times the same for all the different communities we are involved in, I think we can really relate to all those different elements when we're thinking around about digital poverty and what that means. And again, recent studies have shown that there are really significant proportions of the population lacking internet access. And I think even more interesting is the low levels of digital literacy. And the pandemic has just exacerbated this as we all was suddenly thrown to working from home and having not just ourselves working from home but children and students learning from home. And that sort of realization that many students, I think around about 70% of students do not have laptops. And I suppose that's why we're having this conversation now and I think it must be really frustrating for many people who've been really trying to champion this issue that we are only now having such a sharp focus and lens on it. And I think that's because we've all lived through this experience recently and all are beginning to understand what this actually means. And I think it's also been exacerbated over the last few years with a digital shift in many public services. And this digital by default, which assumes internet access assumes that there is digital literacy. And again by digital literacy, I'm referring to something which is more than just knowing about how to use certain software products but is really a way of thinking and mastering and how we use these different digital interfaces. So I think, as I would sort of acknowledge access to broadband and equipment are key but it is also the digital skills and literacy and how that affects people that is so significant. And we've all experienced this now we've all seen what it means to be digitally poor as we've all helped our staff set up and work from home, and we suddenly discovered not everyone had appropriate broadband, had the right equipment. And it's made us really appreciate what, what impact this can actually have. So if I could ask Sue to introduce yourself. Hi everybody. I'm Sue Williamson. I'm the National Director for Public Libraries for Arts Council England, which is the National Development Agency for Public Libraries. My interest is in promoting partnerships with public libraries to use the power of that network, and the expertise of trained public library staff to deliver solutions and programs. During lockdown, the severity of the issue concerning digital poverty was highlighted. And I see a fantastic role for public libraries in helping to address this. Thank you. Now Catherine, would you like to introduce yourself please. Yeah. Hi everyone, my name is Catherine Mills and I'm head of digital social inclusion for Good Things Foundation. So if you don't know who we are. We are a social change charity and we operate both in the UK and Australia. We have a vision with a world that where everyone benefits from digital. We actually lead a network of thousands of community organizations which include public libraries as well as voluntary sector organizations, social housing, those kinds of organizations too. And we have a network that operates both across both countries. And this network is about how we can focus on helping people to access and use the internet to have better lives. Our model is based on embedding and supporting digital inclusion within the critical work that already happens in the community sector at the frontline. So that could be helping people find employment, improve their health or manage money. And over this last year we have seen something that we've been working on for a long time but we've obviously seen a massive interest and increase in the need to start looking at digital poverty. Thank you. And next, can I come to Trevor? Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Trevor Dawes at the Vice Provost for Libraries and Museums and University Librarian at the University of Delaware in the United States. At the University of Delaware, we have been keenly interested in increasing the population of first generation students and students from lower socioeconomic status at our campus. These students are often associated with lack of appropriate access to technological and internet resources. And as everyone already noted, we've certainly seen an exacerbation of this problem during the last 15 months of the pandemic. We also at the University have been including a lot of multimedia components in a lot of our classes. And so certainly within the library, we have been instrumental, I believe, in providing access not only to the equipment but also the relevant instruction that goes with helping not just the students but also some of our faculty members in building those multimedia components in their teaching and learning. Thank you. And now can I go to Joe, please? Good morning or good afternoon, as it were. I am Joe Lucia. I'm the Dean of Libraries at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States and Temple is, we like to call it the public University of the City of Philadelphia. And we are located geographically in the city in relatively impoverished neighborhood with a very large African American and Latinx community that historically has been significantly underserved in a number of different areas, particularly by the free library just because of the way the geography of the branches work. So we have had a historical commitment in the libraries and as an institution to be an ally and a provider of support where possible to that community. So for many years we've run a public computing lab for our neighborhood in our physical facilities. So that's kind of the history. We also learned, you know, as the pandemic shutdown emerged that as an access institution because we have a very significant population of first generation university students that many of our students had technological needs they couldn't easily meet when we went remote. And so we mobilized with our IT folks to provide a very large number of laptops from our loaner pool to put them out in the community. And, and again, kept our building open against, you know, a lot of resistance because a lot of our students who live in Philadelphia did not have access to Wi Fi at home so there's a range of issues where we've been involved with these questions both longer term and in the immediate past. Thank you very much. And Hannah. Hi there everyone. And I'm Hannah Holmes. I'm a research associate at this Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, which is part of the Department of London economy at Cambridge University. And my research is largely focused around social inequalities and marginality. And in the past few years, my work with CCHPR has expanded to include digital poverty as part of that. My work has looked specifically at digital exclusion as a facet of poverty more broadly, and its relationship to other forms of deprivation. And in our most recent work, we're considering the importance of digital inclusion for managing money and finding work amongst people who are experiencing poverty and establishing how digital exclusion fits into the context of people's lives in a sort of more Thank you for that. And last but by absolutely no means least, Christopher. Hi there. Thanks very much. My name's Chris Hale. I'm the Director of Policy Universities UK. And for those of you who don't know, Universities UK is the representative body for all of the universities in the UK, across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have about 140 members and they're made up of the executive heads, Vice-Chancellor's principles of those universities. We've had a key focus as Universities UK as a national organisation supporting our members through the pandemic and particularly that shift to online and what that has meant. And a key aspect of that has been the question of digital poverty and how we support disadvantaged students as well. And we've worked very closely with Jess, which is the UK's higher education technology body, but also with the Office for Students, which is the regulator to really sort of try and understand and explore what some of those issues and challenges are. Understand that shift, understand from a policy perspective what needs to be done. And also how the questions that are arising and becoming more pertinent around digital poverty relate to some of those questions that universities have been dealing with for a very long time around social mobility, access, inclusion, participation and those kind of things. Thank you very much. And then last but not least, for those who don't know you, I'm Kirsty Lingstatt. I'm head of the Digital Library and Deputy Director of the Library University of Edinburgh. And you may have noticed that my co-convenor Michelle Blake is not joining us today and she's unfortunately been laid low and isn't able to come, but I'm sure she'll be listening from her sick bed and cheering us on from the sidelines. So thanks very much for those introductions and also placing into context where each of you are coming from. And I suppose thinking very much around about digital poverty and the fact that really it has been a longstanding societal challenge. I just want to ask about this major challenge that we're facing and to sort of start the discussion and ask, in particular, Catherine and then moving on to Hannah, how would you characterize the nature and extent of this challenge? And how is it really manifest amongst individuals but also amongst particular communities. So Catherine, if you would maybe like to pick up on that aspect. Yeah, thank you, Kirsty. So I just wanted to start by unpicking. I know very helpful you put in your introduction, Kirsty, sort of the explanation of digital poverty, but I thought I might do it just from our perspective in the community side. And it goes to things we've put together what we call a digital exclusion pyramid, which looks at what we consider the four key blocks of digital exclusion. And firstly, it starts at the bottom with devices. What we saw through the pandemic was that if you didn't have access to a device, you're essentially cut off. And it's something that we will hold our hands up for good things because because we'd had this network of organizations, we'd always focus very much on basic skills, thinking that the device and the access to that technology was happening through libraries it was happening through to community organizations. And in that first pandemic in that first lockdown when pretty much everything closed their doors, suddenly lots of people who were you who reliant on those devices were locked out. And so we realized very quickly that we had to do something about it. So for us that firms, the pillar that if you don't have that access to the device, then you're not going to go anywhere. However, once you've got the access, you need to have the connectivity and data poverty is something that again has been around a long time but has really risen in significance and you hear lots of people now starting to talk about data poverty. Interestingly, again, that's one of those words or one of those terms that has lots of different meanings. So for us, it good things data poverty is the inability to afford sufficient private secure internet connection to meet your essential needs. Data poverty means you're not going to be able to live well in a digital society, you know you can't apply for jobs online banks, all your essential services, and you obviously can't keep in touch with people, you know, it leaves communities behind. So you need to have the devices and the data poverty and the connection to go together. The middle bit of our pyramid is the basic digital skills. And by that, we're not talking about all the key skills that you might need an employment and jobs this is about the essential skills you need just to access essential critical services. So we use the government's essential digital framework in the five key areas that we mean by data, basic digital skills is the ability to communicate to email to go on social media to share online to handle information and content. And so many people don't really understand where their information is coming from. Transacting online. How can you do transactions safely online shopping universal credit your health information. Problem solving. How do you find information to help you solve your problems. And wrapped around that is how do you stay safe online, you know, keeping your information legal and confidential. And one of the things that we've been also thinking about is, it's implied consent. How do we get people to recognize when they are giving away essential information that they don't realize that they are, you know, there's a lot going on in that online safety. And again, we saw through the pandemic the increase in online scams and all of those targeting some of the more vulnerable people who were going online first off. And then finally in our digital pyramid at the top is personal motivation because you can give all of those three things but actually if the person hasn't got a reason to engage and digitally, then they'll still say it's not for me or I'll get my daughter or my children to do it. So for us, it is about you have to tackle all those four components. When you're looking at this issue tackling one is not going to get you, it will get you so far but it won't really look at, you know, solving this problem. So in terms of the other bit I just wanted to quickly cover in this bit is the scale of the issue which I think is really useful just to have as context, and very hopefully last week the Lloyds banking group in the UK do a consumer digital snapshot of where we are each year in terms of our digital engagement. And for 2021 these are the just as quick key of some of the things they found. So 14.9 million people in this country still have very low digital engagement. These are these are people who are online but what we call limited users. So by that we mean young people normally who have no or few qualifications who are only using the internet for social media or entertainment. Many limited users only have a smartphone. And again this is this can really affect critical engagement there's only a very limited amount that you can do if you only have a smartphone is your only access to the internet. And many of these limited users don't have the digital skills needed for work. What we have seen through the pandemic is that that level of digital skills you needed to operate to work has increased. And we saw this at good things we have a platform called learn my way where we normally aimed at people who are new to digital skills that takes them on that journey. We suddenly saw an influx of people who are on furlough who were worried about their employment during that first lockdown because they suddenly realized they didn't have the digital skills needed for work. Now that they were having to work either remotely or in a different way and we really saw that influx that people going my digital skills are just no longer good enough. I think very worryingly what Lloyd's found was that 2.6 million people are still completely offline. And 39% of them are under 60. So this bus this idea because I don't know about other people but I get told a lot that you know this is an older but this is for older people older people don't want to engage this is just not true. And this is what this is showing. One of the interesting things I think about this is that digital inclusion is not a fixed state. So people can fluctuate they go you know sometimes especially when it comes to connectivity and data poverty. It's a fluctuation. Sometimes if you have the money you can be included you've got enough money to buy your connections. You know and you have the the right device and you've got the skills but if you actually and we found this a lot through communities telling us people saying I had to choose between either I bought food for the table or I bought data for my children either to do homeschooling or to connect connections. These are the choices it's no longer a nice to have this is essential. And you know so I think it does show in again Lloyd's are saying that data and device affordability is a real issue with 31% of people saying that if they could have cheaper mobile data that would get them all online. And finally, I just want to finish by saying what else the lawyers pulled out was that people with disabilities and impairments are still being left behind as well. So they also are finding through this year the number of people using assisted tech has fallen over the past year. And this is really concerning because it means they may not be able to get online as easily. So I just wanted to give you a bit of an overview of the picture I had. So that's been fantastic and I think that sort of filled out some of those sort of elements and sort of really highlighted sort of some key components of what we mean when we sort of talk about digital poverty as well so thanks very much for that Catherine. And I suppose I was going to go to you Hannah you've done a lot of work in this area. And would you like to pick up with this particular question. Thank you and yeah I guess I'll build upon what Catherine's mentioned about the relationship between digital exclusion and poverty. And so it's increasingly recognized that digital poverty should be considered as one aspect of poverty and social exclusion more broadly, and in that it both contributes to and is exacerbated by the inequality and the poverty that already exists in the UK and beyond. So low income households are far less likely to have access to the internet and to suitable devices and skills than their higher income counterparts. So data from 2014, which I think is provided by the ONS shows that only 51% of households in Scotland who earned annually between £6,000 and £10,000 had access to home internet, compared with 99% of households, which earned over £40,000 a year. So I think the link between poverty and digital exclusion is very clear and digital poverty itself then is a key characteristic of poverty in the 21st century in the UK. And therefore I think digital exclusion is something that can't be solved on its own and tackling poverty as a root cause is a really important part of that. And then in terms of how digital poverty is manifested among individuals and communities, my research with people who are taking part in a coaching program, which aims to help people get into work, manage their money and get online. It shows that not being able to get online is very closely related to the other aspects of deprivation that people are experiencing. And it's manifested in having seriously reduced access to job opportunities, not only because obviously there's an increasing need for digital skills in work, in many jobs, but also because access to online job applications is limited if you don't have a good internet connection, a suitable device or the skills that you need to be able to sign up for an account on a job site and then write and upload a CV on the computer and then monitor that account for any updates. And it also makes managing money more difficult if you can't check your bank balance, for example, without physically getting on a bus to go to a bank or to the ATM and then you can't compare deals online so you might end up paying more for something when you're already on a tight budget. And often people who are digitally excluded often do end up relying on expensive pay-as-you-go data rather than on broadband contracts. Perhaps because someone might have unreliable monthly income and they might not be able to sort of commit to saying they'll pay out a contract every month, or people might have debts or poor credit rating and therefore some providers won't actually accept their custom. And then some people might just be unaware as well of the different options that are available out there because they can't get online to check. So I spoke to one person during my research who was paying £70 a month for data on his phone, which was a lot more data than he actually needed, just because he hadn't known how much he would need when he signed up for it and there was no information that he could access that would tell him that information. So I think it's fair to summarise then that digital poverty is a problem which is closely related and closely maps onto poverty more broadly. And it's obviously got several well-documented implications, essentially making life more difficult for people who are already struggling with poverty. Thanks for that, Hannah. And just sort of thinking around about what both Catherine and Hannah you've been talking about, I wonder if I could just bring Sue in for a minute because Catherine, you mentioned that role of libraries and public libraries and that assumption that if people didn't have devices, they might be going to libraries or other sort of places and spaces to get that sort of access. And I don't know, Sue, if you want to kind of hop in and maybe just sort of pull on this a bit because I think it also ties in with that sort of skills piece that both of you have sort of mentioned and talked about, Sue. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to talk to this when we come to my bit a little bit as well, but I mean just to say there are over 3000 libraries in England alone, and they're right in the heart of their communities. And they've had free internet access for over 20 years for anybody. So you don't need your own device, but if you do have your own device. They have Wi-Fi access as well. 99% of libraries in England have Wi-Fi access. And they also have trained staff on hand to help people with any queries or questions. And I mean I've worked in a pub before this job I've worked in a library, you know, you get people coming in saying, What does that A sign mean with the squiggle over the top and can you show me how to set up an email account. It's that level when when Catherine was talking about lack of internet skills, it's that kind of level. And one thing I would say actually is that during the pandemic, public libraries were designated as essential services precisely because they could provide that digital access. So if you could have you could during lockdown book a PC in a public library and go in and spend, you know, book an hour slot and go in and do whatever you needed to do. And make a job application, look at the health services online, whatever you needed to do. So yeah, I mean they're an essential service in this. Absolutely. I'm thinking a bit more round about this as opposed to spoken a lot about the sort of broader aspects but I suppose thinking around about students, students are living in communities, students were quite often sent home during this particular period, and we're therefore much more embedded in their communities but also sometimes still living within the university environment. So Christopher, do you want to just perhaps pull out some of the elements and aspects there that students were particularly grappling with. Yeah, thanks, Kirsty and thank you for those overviews from Hannah and Catherine really really useful framing. I mean, I'll see as we've heard access to equipment and connections are are pretty critical and absolutely critical to learning and there is from the evidence we've looked at there is a quite a good correlation between those students from disadvantaged backgrounds and digital poverty and that's something we see in in higher education and I think it's. I think the good news is that universities have been quite well placed to respond and then part of the good news is that we kind of broadly know who those students are and over time because of that correlation we've, we've done a lot of work to be able to respond to who those students are and a lot of support around bursaries around equipment around connection dongles all that kind of stuff has been has been put in place john the john the pandemic and that work builds on that work that universities have done to support those students. We've seen increasing demand and we've seen increasing demand and stretch for those sort of hardship funds and the bursaries that are available. I guess the point I'd like to make however is I think it's quite important we don't just look at that digital poverty question and this is something that's really come to our mind thinking about universities and students as an absolute thing that is strictly correlated to what we think about poverty and disadvantage particularly in relation to students and, and indeed I guess society more widely in a, in a sort of traditional sense and, and I think there's a number of challenges which have come up in terms of thinking about students one. One is concerned that was expressed as students with family income, who in most cases don't qualify for support you know they're not registered as students don't have a track record of preschool meals they're not sort of registered and recorded as disadvantaged students and we've seen john the period of the pandemic, changing their family circumstances which has potentially brought them into into challenge so I think there's, there's an issue there which I think universities have to grapple with in terms of identifying those students I think some students have struggled with poor Wi-Fi connections and, and we've often seen those students not being perhaps the students you think they, they might be, you know, because of the context in which they are living or studying this report showed that 62% of students highlight an impact on their learning of slow, slow Wi-Fi and slow connection so that's, that's a wider group of students and those universities might be traditionally targeted in relation to disadvantages and often those students are living in shared accommodation might be at home, might be at halls or in rural areas for example where their connectivity might, might be poor or might be, might be weak. And I think that sort of adds additional cost pressures to those students as well and added stress and does sort of jeopardize that their learning potentially again so, and as I say it's not necessarily sometimes those students that have been identified and targeted for, for support. And I think there's also a question of staff as well and often, you know, I think there's assumption obviously because staff in universities, you know, in most cases, probably are regarded as having a, you know, not being disadvantaged but I think some of the circumstances that staff have lived in and, you know, have had challenges around connectivity. I mean I'm a school governor and it's actually an issue which came up in terms of teaching stuff. I mean you may not regard those teaching stuff being in sort of poverty or necessarily disadvantage but in terms of digital connectivity, some of them had real challenges in terms of their, you know, their personal circumstances and the environments they were living in and those kind of and also just being able to get good connection. And then I think, you know, I think it's been raised already as well and it was raised in your opening points Kirsty about the sort of thinking about the context and where people are living and actually just having a good space. It's one thing you may have good connection, good connectivity but working and learning remotely can be a challenge and having the space to do that, you know, where it's quiet. And you've got the space to be able to study and be able to do what you need to do is really important. And then I think another issue which has come up which is one that has been raised already is that sort of capacity to learn digitally and so. And I think there's often a generational issue here I think people often assume, you know, people of certain generation of digital natives, they could they live online but but actually learning online and having the capabilities to learn through digital sources I think is a challenge and that's something that needs to be learned in itself and supported quite closely so I think there's a potential area where digital poverty can manifest itself in that regard. So I think there's there's lots of ongoing support that's needed, particularly for those people who are from social poor or social economic backgrounds, more disadvantaged backgrounds but I think there's also this wider set of issues that sit around those people as well but I think we've got to make sure we're we're understanding and engaging with as well. So, and I think what you were just talking about there really chimes you know having kids at home who are trying to learn and do online learning that's actually quite different from being in the classroom and talking to students staff and that I've been working with here at the university again, some of them were just finding they were struggling because it is. They are familiar with it but there are additional skills, especially when you're doing it for prolonged periods of time. And I was just wondering, and from the sort of us perspective is there anything that you travel or Joe would like to kind of chime in with at this particular point in time. I do appreciate the framing also that Catherine Hannah provided and, and particularly the pyramid model about which Catherine spoke. I think we've been certainly at our university we've been sort of focusing on on the first three components of the pyramid as you described them the equipment, the access and and the skills and what we haven't been focusing on is that personal motivation piece. And I think that's really critical for us in order for these skills to be really internalized so that they can be lifelong skills for our students and faculty across the across the university. So thank you for that framing and I think it'll it'll help us as we think about how we continue to use our and do our instruction. Yes, and I'll just say again to echo that point I think what's really telling here is the real congruence across, you know, our kind of national boundaries around the shape of these issues and how they're experienced and I think one of our challenges in in the US and this is a broad that's not just related to digital poverty is that we're not really very effective as a country in mobilizing at a national policy level and many of these things really do require kind of a coherent shared vision of what we wish to accomplish so we do a lot of things in in highly localized settings and, you know, across, you might say professional cultures but without a large systematic, often unified framework so, you know, to be, you know, specific in terms of you know that the kinds of things we've never mentioned. Again, we're committed in in those areas as well in serving our community, but the work we're doing is not always integrated with a broader set of programs. Let's say in the city, although I don't want to underplay the fact that that's that our city government has recognized these issues and is trying to do some things more systematically within the city of Philadelphia and we are involved in some of those and I'll probably talk about a few of those a bit Thanks for that and we've got a couple of hands up so Sue you first and then we'll come to Catherine. Thanks Kirsty. I just just I've been following the chat actually and I think I probably just need to clarify something a lot of people have been saying that their local library wasn't open. A group of key stakeholders have been having weekly conversations with government and out of those conversations, we produced a toolkit so that libraries could reopen safely, which has been really sort of useful in all the stages of lockdown. And what government said was that libraries could open. They were they were allowed to open for four essential services of one of which one was being able to book PCs. The decision on whether to open the local public library rested entirely with the local authority. It wasn't mandatory. So I thought I'd better just say that I'd also just like to say that I think Joe made a brilliant point there that actually this is this is something that needs national programming national solution finding in order to address. And possibly finally just to say as a student who when I went through university I didn't even have a typewriter I wrote everything by hand. I'm currently doing a course actually, and I'm finding it really difficult, even though I use technology every day to understand what how students work on a regular basis to study using digital technology all the time. Very different from any experience of learning I've ever had. Thanks. I suppose just listening to, sorry, see I can't even raise and lower my hand properly. So I suppose I just wanted to put back a little bit of a challenge as well to everyone into the community because one of the things we've been looking at is digital ecosystems and obviously a university or a research library is part of that community and to think through that halo effects that you can have. So it isn't just thinking about the students as well as and I know when we've you know I know I think Joe and others have said about the staff but one of the challenges that we always put when we work with organizations is is every single member of your staff and when I see that I mean all your cleaning stuff your property maintenance staff who perhaps digital isn't part of their job, but actually as as part of being part of those communities and part of an academic community. So we not have a responsibility to ensure that all members of staff are digitally engaged. And actually if you think through they are then going back into their communities. And you know we're talking about students and others working and being environments where those digital skills are perhaps not there. There is a halo effect and so I do I would like to broaden out our thinking really and that is the challenge that I give to everyone. It's local government and all sorts is let's really broaden out who, when we say about who needs digital skills, it's really making sure that everybody who we work with and engage with it has an opportunity to get those digital skills. Thank you for that Catherine and I think again that sort of challenge and that question around about you know what scope is there for the civic university to sort of start addressing digital poverty is a really key thing and I'll sort of answer that question which has come from the audience from Joe Web and can I also hand over to Christopher who I think wants to come in at these questions. Okay first. Yes. Yeah. No I think that's a Catherine I think that's a great, a great challenge I was going to pick up on the point. Kirsty did about the Civic University and that civic role and I think that's something that's really getting momentum in the UK at the side there about how universities can support the communities in which they are, they are rooted and, and we're already seeing some of that I think that sort of supporting digital poverty is a really important dimension that and we're seeing, I mean I was quite struck yesterday I think just wrote a letter to what the minister to write a letter to local authorities saying can you extend the access that they provide from in universities at your own basically which is the sort of university Wi-Fi system to local authority so it could be made available more widely within the community and I think that's a great example of how the sort of capacity and capability within the university sector can really help that civic role. The other thing I wanted to say and the reason I put my my hand up as well is that whilst we're talking about digital poverty there's an interesting contradiction emerging which I think we should perhaps think about in our discussion and and particularly the evidence that we're developing and the discussions we're having with the sector shows that the shift to online and the shift that universities have made okay it's been quite a steep learning curve but a lot of universities have got it right has actually led to better attainment and better outcomes and also a narrowing of the attainment gap, particularly between more advantaged and disadvantaged students. So there must be something there that is worth sort of looking at and exploring and building upon. I mean, yes, I think we do need to be focusing on this question around this quality but it feels like universities have done sort of quite a good job in maintaining that sort of quality of provision and also narrowing those gaps so I'm just interested in other people's what might be causing that now some of that might be there is no detriment policies. And some of the assessments that would have taken place didn't take place and those kind of things but I don't think that completely explains the narrowing of those gaps. Things we're seeing is that people are more engaged and more likely to get engaged particularly those people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. And there's lots more opportunities for them to get engaged and I wonder whether sort of continuing to support that capability and their ability to get online could actually lead some quite significant sort of changes in terms of the outcomes for those students. Thank you for that Christopher and now Lisa who's been patiently waiting. And do you want to join the panel and ask your question please. Sure. I'm sorry there is building work happening so if I might, you might hear some drilling. I just wanted to know, have you and have any of you in your research. Oh, by the way, I'm really pleased to see our US colleagues here so nice to see you guys. Any of our panelists found that there are any similarities between the ways that people have been excluded from from access to, for example, sports facilities and the way that people are excluded from digitally enabled facilities. Are there, you know, I'm just wondering about larger patterns in our communities, where you can see that. I know we're talking about people who experienced, you know, financial deprivation, but that larger pattern of really how people are actually in their local communities. Just, we're in a, we're in an economy that's a global economy but nobody's given global citizenship. And all of our investments are for, for global firms that don't need to invest in a local community and so we find and that's happening in the UK and it has always been the case in the US. So I just wonder if there are other patterns and maybe if actually there are opportunities then for us to address broader issues in our local communities because we can see that that the digital divide is actually one of many and maybe addressing those divides can happen in a more organized coherent response. Thank you for that Lisa. I wonder whether perhaps Hannah, would you like to pick up on that first. Yeah, can I find my new one. And yeah. Yeah I think certainly is obviously a broader. It's an aspect of broader exclusion. And so the research that I'm doing at the moment I haven't, I haven't finished it but I am finding that people who are generally excluded from broader societal activities and perhaps people, a lot of people with mental health conditions that potentially excluded from, from various different activities as a result of that as well. It's, I suppose it's sort of a broader issue that can't be tackled on its own because because it's linked more broadly to poverty. I saw somebody put in the chat about the retrenchment of the welfare state and end of closure of so public facilities as part of austerity, which is obviously all the key part of it. And I think it goes back to what Catherine said, obviously being online is now an essential. It's not something that is a kind of a luxury. It's something that's essential and therefore, if people who are on low incomes, perhaps on universal credit, and not able to afford access through the income that they have. And then obviously it's not giving people the opportunities to then to get online and to engage in society and the way that, and the way that they should be able to with that welfare support. I suppose that's a link to a broader issue there. Thanks so much for that Hannah, I don't know, do any of our other panelists want to pick up on those particular comments that Lisa made and kind of add to Hannah's feedback there. I mean, I come back to the point I made earlier about that civic role of the universities, I think. I think that's something we can do I think I don't think you can sort of look to universities to replace the sort of the state and that sort of welfare state role but I think there's a lot of things that universities are doing in their communities, you mentioned sports facilities I think in the question and I think universities will have quite well most universities will have open access policies around their facilities and and campuses are quite permeable these days in terms of the local communities and they'll provide, you know, support for all sorts of groups and societies that are outside of the students as well as well as a sort of example I gave earlier around still providing Wi-Fi and access to connectivity where they can. Catherine, you've got your hand raised. Yeah, I think Joe's hands up longer than me. Sorry. I couldn't see it there my apologies Joe. Thank you. I was going to wait until you called on me so I appreciate that I do I want to. This actually follows on a couple of different comments but it was really triggered by the you know the reflections on the halo effect of universities and I'm thinking you know we have a scope of resources and a scale of social capital and different types that allow us to do certain things. And I'm not trying to say oh so let me tell you about great things we're doing at my institution but we have a program that's evolving right now that's not fully implemented that I think is an interesting example of the halo effect which is this city of Philadelphia Digital Literacy Alliance. We're working to bring no cost wireless networking into the surrounding neighborhoods by by a collaboration with a point to point internet provider in the city that provides low cost internet. Essentially, you know, antenna based with mesh repeaters. And it's a collaborative project that actually has a business model behind it because they will be able will be able to sell low cost wireless to our students who live in the surrounding neighborhood and apartments of various kinds but also create an open public internet that you know to use a phrase one of my colleagues use that kind of reclaims public space by turning local parks and other outdoor spaces into free wireless access points for the city, and also allowing that signal to you know penetrate local buildings and be available for home wireless for members of our community so that's a really interesting example that's built around an alliance between the city, a business, and an institutional commitment to be a resource. In this particular space in our neighborhood. Anyway, that's that's that's just a little local story. So Catherine do you want to come in now. Yeah, just going back to Lisa's point. And so one of the things that the reason that my title is digital social inclusion is because we absolutely recognize what Hannah was saying that digital exclusion and social exclusion go hand in hand. And so what we find by working with community organizations and libraries and others working in those trusted spaces where people perhaps aren't presenting with digital inclusion they're not presenting with digital skills sometimes what they come in with. I need help with my universal credit application I need to help with the job. And we actually then embed those digital skills as we help them to come overcome these challenges these social issues that they're going through. And so when what we find is that by doing that and it goes back to that personal motivation piece that people there is a reason for actually starting to engage. And then we have a theory of change is part of our learning and what we see is is that very few people go on a very linear journey where they start off with. Okay I need to apply for a job. Oh great I know how you know I'm going to start doing digital skills now and they carry on until they're digitally included. They will drop on and off. But the benefit of having places like libraries which I'm sure we'll pick up with because I know we've sort of the next topic and so we'll pick up on this but having those trusted spaces in communities where people can go and help with I just need help with an email. They get help with that resolution but then it's about building that confidence and then they will come back again and again. And it is this sort of how you build these journeys but it is about addressing some of those social issues alongside digital inclusion. There's very few that there are some people that come in and go I want to learn how to be, you know, I want to learn digital skills. The majority of people and I do come with. I was a librarian for 17 years in public library so I have been there I have sat where people have gone you go well, you know, you just use a mouse. Where's a mouse, you know, no, no, that's the mouse. Where's the cut, you know, and you really have to think through your language and everything. You know, you take people on a journey but most of the time it is about addressing some of those social issues and not just digital inclusion on its own. Thank you so much for that Catherine and Trevor you had your hand up there would you just like to come in now. Sure. So, I appreciate the question about the broader social aspects and, you know, particularly in the US we've seen a lot of not just libraries but academic institutions more broadly and even in the for profit and not for profit spaces, using language around anti racism. Right now, and while it's not exactly explicitly tied to digital exclusion for us at the University of Delaware, where we have just embarked on an anti racism audit with a partner institution in Binghamton. Those heard me tell this story before we are looking at all of our practices are our talent management practices are communication services are digital are everything that we do through an anti racist anti racist lens. Now what's the connection between that and digital and digital literacy so when we when we look at everything from through this through this anti racist lens, what we're really doing is being more inclusive overall. And the story that I used to illustrate this point is one of desegregation in in the state of Alabama, when swimming pools in the state of Alabama were desegregated, and the white citizens of the state decided to close the public swimming pool, thereby leaving no pools available for anyone to swim in not only the black kids children were excluded but the white children were also excluded. So by looking at what we do through an anti racist lens then it bring it lifts everyone up at the same time in all aspects of what we do, including our digital services. I want to go back to Catherine's point about, you know, I do talk a lot about the students because I'm in a higher education library. But yes, we do think more broadly, more broadly about the community, the community at large and partnering with our public libraries and other organizations to really build those skills out across and I think this is the ways in which we have been focusing our, our work, most recently, I think is really going to help all of us in the end. Thank you very much for that and I think this is the perfect moment actually to kind of think a little bit more about the role of libraries in combating digital poverty. We've really begun to touch on that and it's been reflected through the questions as well. So I think I'd like to ask you, Sue, if you could just highlight a little bit more the role of libraries, and whether it's public or other in combating digital poverty I know you've touched on a couple of things already but if you could just expand on that please. Of course. Thanks, Kirsty, and good afternoon everyone. I've been asked to outline the role of public libraries in this debate around digital poverty and some of the things I've already touched on but I'm going to, I'm going to go through it again to put it into context and also, you know, to emphasize it for those people who have come from a long time who are maybe not familiar with the role of public libraries in England and the rest of the UK. So public libraries have been key players in the UK in preventing digital poverty since the end of the last century, when government funded free access to computers in public through the people's network program which is now 24 years old. They wanted to ensure that access to technology wasn't limited solely to those who could afford both connectivity and the then very expensive devices to access increasing technological developments, then bearing in mind that even to self build a computer in those days cost about 1300 pounds. So it was it was in it without that network it was limited to very few people. More recently, government also funded Wi Fi in public libraries to support those with the necessary devices who were maybe on the move, or without decent broadband, or perhaps as we've touched on the where we thought to fund that connectivity in their homes and that's what digital poverty is all about. It's there, but I can't afford it. And there's been a big huge debate over lockdown about sort of bringing digital connectivity into the realm of other other utilities like electricity gas. And everything that makes you water everything that makes you able to live comfortably in your own home in the 21st century. It's worth reflecting at this point that access to computers and to in fact all the resources through the public library network in the UK is entirely free at the point of contact. And it's also useful to think back to that initial vision and how far we've come in terms of that shift to digital in the intervening 20 years and the acceleration of that shift to digital programming that's happened because of the pandemic. We've all we've talked a lot already about the staggering number of people with no or limited digital skills. And I think it's very difficult for those for whom digital engagement is as natural as breathing to understand that there are those, usually the elderly and the vulnerable but not exclusively as we've already mentioned, who are just totally bamboozled by the speed of the shift to digital. Just think about how many things essential to 21st century life can now only be done in the digital universe and not face to face and then add those which are more easily done online such as banking, getting the post office to collect a parcel for you, and during the pandemic, basic shopping. This is where public libraries provide an essential surface in promoting greater understanding. Through that people's network, and the addition of Wi Fi capability for over 20 years, public libraries in the UK have been hugely instrumental in providing support to access the world to the internet and advanced communication. During the pandemic libraries also massively increased their free ebook and the audio collections, which for many have been lifelines during lockdown. In fact, they've seen something between a six to 800% uptake in those services, which are also completely free for library users. In England alone, we have more than 3000 public library branches, and they're anchors in the community, the library staff know their communities at grassroots level as Catherine referred to earlier. During lockdown, on average, many of the staff in library services made 30 to 40 telephone calls per day per service to those who were isolated vulnerable shielding and alone, and without digital access or skills. In some cases, through those calls, they provided professional support in using technology for the first time for those with devices, perhaps given to them by their grandchildren that had never been out of the boxes. Public libraries, as I mentioned earlier, were designated essential services by government and were allowed to remain open if the local authority chose to allow them to do so. This meant that without access to technology in the home, people could still engage with that health information employment sites and other essential services during lockdown. Because libraries are safe and trusted spaces where people go to inquire on all topics, which in my experience in the digital context includes issues ranging from really basic requests like I need to create an email account through how do I pay my council tax my vehicle tax. How do I fill in the recent census form. I need to apply for a secondary school place for my child and it has to be done online and I don't know how to do it. Or I need to apply for universal credit. Can you help me to, can you help me write a CV or do a job application. But, and this is again something that's come up in the chat, public libraries are funded through local authorities who are in severe financial difficulty, and they're often seen as a target for savings, and this sadly has been the stark reality for over 10 years. And the result is that there are simply not enough staff hours to meet the demand in this area, particularly in more rural and isolated parts of the country. But there is huge potential to unlock that network of library services and to use the existing platform to address this increasingly urgent problem. With more focused resource and using their hardware software and Wi-Fi provision, as well as the trained expertise of public library professional staff, libraries could deliver even more than they currently do, which is already impressive. Thank you so much for a super for that suit and also for answering a number of questions, which are beginning to bubble up, which I was just about to pose so that was excellent. And I think thinking around about that sort of public libraries piece, Christopher, if I can pull you in just to sort of think a little bit around about also that sort of student population and what some of their experience has been when sort of trying to get access to particular areas. Yeah, thanks. And then I'll make a comment on quite a lot of interesting points coming up on the chat around open access and those kind of things, which I think are really, really important and indeed cost. I mean, just on the pandemic. I mean, a lot of universities didn't close. I mean, there was often this sort of perception wasn't there that the universities were closed. A lot of students were not coming on to campus and were learning remotely but actually a lot of universities stayed open. A lot of staff were there to support those students that needed additional support and there were provisions made in the guidance from government, for example, about particular types of students that could come in and use certain facilities and some of that included library facilities and study space facilities, particularly those students who are unable to access those, you know, in their own home environments or elsewhere. And I think that was an important role that universities played. I guess a lot of universities now are thinking about, you know, libraries as part of that broader question about where we go now really in terms of what we learned from the pandemic. And I think, as I've already said, there have been a lot of positives from that. A lot of the universities are thinking, well, do we go down this digital first route, which was talked about. But I think there's lots of issues that flow from that and things, sort of questions and strategic questions that need to be resolved about the sort of options and the services that sit around that digital first approach. And this open access question is a key one. I mean, that will be, you know, I think, as someone said in the chat, we've made great strides in that area, but I don't think we've probably made as much progress as perhaps we could make. There's also issues about cost and the cost of the university and what it can afford to provide in terms of licenses and software and those kind of things. And I think some of the big questions about how those things are procured and negotiated with the publishers and with software licenses and licenses and those kind of things come into question. And then I think the other strategic question to universities is the space, what do you do with the physical space and I think that I mean a lot as I mean they're poor people here are far more qualified to talk about this than I am but I sense there was a trend in that direction anyway about rethinking, you know, those spaces that perhaps libraries have once occupied. And I think there's a question about how that is reshaped and remoulded to support study space and and Andy deal with some of these questions we've raised about those people who perhaps don't have access to an options for studying remotely as well. I think just picking up on some of the things you were raising there and again we've had a number of questions around about digital skills and I think they sort of apply both within the universities as well as kind of the sort of public libraries is that digital skills piece and how do we provide that training, not just perhaps to students and communities but I think also it's come up a number of times staff within kind of universities communities. How do we actually tackle that that digital literacy skills element and how do we make that a much better experience for everyone so everyone can get access to that type of learning that they need. If I can maybe throw that question open is there anyone who would like to kick us off on some thoughts around about that and and how we can approach it to this is a very small point but but when I when I went to university. Many months ago. I had to set a qualification at the time called the use of English. And it was, it was a completely random qualification that proved that I just knew how to use the language. And I'm wondering whether actually there is something here for all students to do while they're still in the sixth form at school before they go to university in terms of the kind of digital skills that they're going to be expected to be able to be competent in when they go to university. So that that transition phase is more easily managed so that they get something that equates them to go before they actually get there because I do think that there is a gap there for a lot of students in terms of the level of skills they're able to use when they actually go to university. Thanks for that Trevor. So I think, you know, again going back to to a point that was raised earlier we do have staff members, maybe in the library and certainly across the campus who may not have even been to university and have not developed some of the skills about which we are speaking here today. And we often have, we make accommodations for for those staff rather than helping those staff members to develop the skills. So I'm thinking something very simple, like we're doing an all campus survey, and the surveys administered electronically, and we will provide a paper survey for those staff who don't have the equipment and whose work doesn't normally involve the use of equipment on on campus. And, and you know that accommodation, we can argue about the benefits of that but what we, what I think we do have an obligation to help improve those digital skills. Many of us, I'm sure she would agree and our UK colleagues would as well. We do provide instruction in our libraries on the use of on on digital skills and you know we could certainly go into a lot of detail about that but then the commitment from the university and the staff the managers the administrators, particularly of those staff who may not have those skills. We need to get that support from from our colleagues and at those levels in order to ensure that the time is available is made available, the paid time is made available for those staff members to take advantage of the many resources instructional resources that that we provide. So not an answer to the question necessarily, but I think just highlighting what one of the major barriers is for increasing that literacy digital literacy among some of our colleagues. Yes, and I think I sort of saw a comment earlier on and the sort of chatting questions whether we actually have that data around about who of our staff is actually attending digital skills training. And so whether we understand who's applying whether it's just professional staff whether we're really making kind of digital skills training really open to all areas of our staff when we're working within universities there is that assumption. But actually is that an assumption we're making and actually those people might benefit aren't necessarily seeing it as training or appropriate for them so I think there is definitely that question and also that question. In my mind around about are we collecting the right data in our universities about who's attending this. And maybe we do need to think a little bit more widely around this question of digital skills and literacy in order to make sure that we're much more inclusive. And I think we also need to just start thinking a little differently just because staff don't need access to do some of their work day to computers and hardware day to day. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't start thinking about ways and means of providing it because that could start shifting and changing what happens in society more widely. So if you've got your hand up would you like to come in please. You unmute. Thank you I'm sorry I just want to make a comment about digital skills training and programs and the impact we can or can't have and I, and I think, you know, all of us at our in our various environments are probably trying to do things that are reaching a portion of the population that really needs to be served or invited in to the world where we operate comfortably with with digital tools and information. The challenge I see is that those interventions are very narrow and only touch. You know, small, sometimes even self selected groups and and I think that the issue and this is going to go back to an earlier point I made the issue I think for us is, can we as institutions do things as a sector, rather than individually and do things across sectors to begin addressing these problems and to bring some of these resources together. You know, we, we have engagements with the public schools as a public university in the city of Philadelphia we have engagements with the city, but we don't have a systematic view or programmatic framework for the fact that this problem does need to be addressed more globally and I just, that's one of the things that that concerns me is that the, the local programs which are well motivated and effective in a narrow sense, still don't deal with the largest systemic piece that we really need to be, I think, concerned about. Thanks for that, Catherine. I mean, to base on thinking how we do it in communities but for the, we just need to embed and digital skills in what we do we need to think stop seeing it as something separate that needs a separate course or a separate way of dealing with we have to embed it in whatever, whatever programs or interventions or teaching we are doing, it has to be a natural part of that and not seen as something as an add on. I believe that doesn't work in the community sector in terms of adding it on and I don't see why any reason it should be different here I think it's about changing our perspective and seeing it as a natural part of whatever we do digital skills is embedded as part of that teaching and learning. I have to say, I think I fairly agree with that particular comment but I think it's so hard to achieve and I think so many people still sort of see digital skills as something that's just slightly separate and off to the side and I think again I was really struck when talking around about digital literacy, people see it as oh I know how to use this piece of software or this piece of technology and actually, you know, the more I work in this area the more it is just it's that mindset, it's a sort of aptitude, it's an agility, it's a type of thinking that really needs to kind of come through and it's how do we sort of help people learn that and kind of bring that to the floor and I think that's really very challenging. Christopher, what would you like to. Yeah, I was really going to kind of wholeheartedly agree with Catherine's points I think there's probably things that can be provided separately that are optional but I think as I think there's an opportunity because a lot of universities are sort of coming off the back of the pandemic and thinking about their curriculum, the sort of pedagogy that underpins that and how they sort of rebuild that in a sort of digital context and I think building some of these thinking and some of these skills into that framework as it develops I think will be really important but also looking at it as part of a sort of whole institutional approach as well that's sort of joined up so if there are additional modules and options and opportunities that are being provided through the library community or other parts of the institution that they sort of reinforce that. And then, and then also I think not just looking at it in terms of the curriculum either because I think, particularly in relation to students and thinking about disadvantage and opportunity. Often that that sort of follows the students through their student life cycle and is reflected in terms of, you know, student outcomes and employment outcomes as well so thinking about the kind of skills that would need digital skills that would need to be embedded in taking opportunity of other things that the university is able to offer in terms of, you know, internships, careers advice and support, other sort of pastoral support as well that is provided by the university out with that sort of core teaching and learning support as well. Thanks for that and Sue and then Hannah. Yeah, I mean I absolutely agree with what Catherine was saying but I think the issue here is that people need different digital skills for different digital things. And they, and they, these are mushrooming. So, for example, I was, I was taking part last week in a forum around health literacy and health digital literacy. There is a move now accelerated by the pandemic for people to have more online consultations with their doctors. But supposing, you know, on that forum was a dermatologist who was saying, you know, some people don't have the skills to be able to take a photograph of the skin condition that they're trying to supply, upload it and send it to him for him to have a look at. And when it arrives, it might be blurred and he might not be able to make the diagnosis that he needs to make. And I think, you know, thinking about that, it's about going back to those people who don't have any skills at all and thinking just how terrifying that is, you know, I can't go and see my doctor anymore now. They want me to do this consultation online. And I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. And that I think is the most fundamental issue that digital poverty needs to address. But with regard to students, I think, again, it's a set of skills that you need to be able to study at university, or you need to be competent in, which are above those kinds of skills that might be embedded in everyday life. And that's what I was trying to say, you know, I was, and by using the analogy of the use of English paper, I did, I could speak English by the time I was 18. The test I had to do was that I could reproduce that in a forum that was going to be acceptable to the university that I was going to. And I think that's the thing is actually making sure that all of our citizens are equipped to do the things in a digital lifestyle that they need to be able to do. That's the way we address digital poverty. Thanks for that, Sue. And before I go to you, Hannah, and just a couple of questions that have kind of come through the chat, which are very pertinent to the point you were making that different people need those different skills for very different reasons. And I think one of the things that's come emerging through the questions is around about post graduates, which have very different need from undergraduates, and have very different sort of challenges that they're facing. And another person on the chat was just kind of raising that issue of mature students coming to learn later on in life may also have very different digital requirements and different skills that they need to learn. Sorry, Hannah, but before we come to your particular area, is there anything that our panelists would like to pick up on that different people, different skills piece that we're seeing coming through so strongly? In which case, if we've got nothing further, but everyone in complete agreement that that is absolutely the case. Perhaps, Hannah, do you want to come in next? Yeah, I guess it's quite a similar point to what Sue's said around specific skills, but specific different activities. And the point really is that I think we need to make sure that people have the opportunities to be online beyond those specific activities that they need to be able to do. If you've got less chance to be online to practice your skills generally in other areas, you're going to have a less rich experience of being online and your digital literacy is probably not going to be as strong for the specific things that you need it for. But again, relates back to the sort of the broader social deprivation so people who are relying on a data contract, they might find themselves restricting what they use their data for in case that they find themselves needing something for their digital things or what they deem to be essential later in the month, and therefore they're really doing this of less, a less rich exploration of what the internet can offer. And then when it comes to the specific activities that they want to be able to use the internet for they might not be quite as well equipped to do it. I think we're sort of seeing that coming through and a range of areas. Sue. I just wanted to pick up on a something that was in the chat from Dr. Purcell, who was saying, could the panelists say what two or three tangible things they'd like to see happening in order to address these problems and I'd like to go back to Joe's description of the context of how they were using connectivity antenna based connectivity. There's a project going on in in the Republic of Ireland at the moment which is doing precisely that with Microsoft in partnership it's about capturing excess connectivity for that is spilling out of TV connections and harnessing that and putting it into the library network to strengthen that and allow the Wi-Fi to be more accessible and they're doing that in partnership with specific students who are coming from deprived backgrounds and I think there's a similar project also happening in Chicago as well through the university there and I think that in terms of addressing this issue of public spaces as places where people can go to actually access connectivity. I think that's a really big area that we could do more research on to see how that's possible. I would like to see the Wi-Fi network through public library strengthened so that if you have a library card wherever you are in your community. You can plug into your device and use the library services Wi-Fi power to be able to in your home to be able to do that and I don't know how to make those connections and I'd love to see universities look research panels looking at that to see how we could we could we could strengthen those public Wi-Fi networks for those who don't have access can't afford access in their own homes through any other means. And actually I think one of our panelists was sort of highlighting that museums are very much also community spaces and you know quite often also provide Wi-Fi so is there something they're working across sectors so very much echoing what you're saying there so that we need to look much more widely at public spaces where are public spaces and where can we start providing those those access points. And it does also really remind me of the early days of the pandemic when we quite often found our students kind of perched outside the library because they could get good Wi-Fi connectivity there and kind of downloads various different elements they needed for their coursework so I think it is such a crucial part of what we do need to provide. I think I'd just like to explore a little bit more that point around about the needs of different users and the needs of our different university users as well. And I wondered whether Joe or Trevor might have any further reflections around about that sort of postgraduate undergraduate requirements and needs. And I think another thing that's coming through very strongly on the sort of questioning is also around about universities sometimes being walled gardens these research universities and not necessarily being so open and sharing the kind of resources that they have how can that be improved. So who might like to kick off and respond to some of those areas and elements. Joe, can I come to you first. Sure I'll do my best here and I again I'm going to say I think that underneath that question there's a lot of subtleties and complexities about local populations local groups and who needs what and our undergraduate student body at my institution is not monolithic you know so we have an interesting mix of you know middle and upper middle class kids who many of whom come from out of state who are relatively well off economically and their needs are different from the needs of the of the student body that comes. Let's say from the from the state from the city and so what what you know how you achieve coherence and and you know what you think the critical needs are is one of the challenges, I mean we do have students who you know did not have access to this was you know high quality portable computing. When we went remote and we had to figure out how to get into the hands of those students, the tools they needed to complete their, you know academic work during the course of not only last year but through this entire academic year which we've just finished and there's there's challenges around self identification who wants to come forward and say I don't have or can't afford a laptop. We had some very interesting issues with just access to I mean we've talked about many of these things already but access to reliable Wi-Fi we have in the new building we opened at Temple about almost two years ago now. We had a 24 seven study space that we actually closed during the pandemic and we had some very distressed students because they had nowhere to go at night to get reliable Wi-Fi, you know and so. The decisions we made about protecting the general welfare of our community and closing facilities, you know, really severely disadvantaged groups of students that had to come forward and speak up because they couldn't do their work otherwise. I don't want to try and go into the graduate student versus undergraduate student topic because yet because that's a pretty complicated one about the differences across the population and they're not heterogeneous either. So I'll just leave my comments there and see if Trevor has things he wants to add. Thanks so much for that Joe Trevor. Um, but sometimes we make the assumption that graduate students having been through the undergrad the rigors of an undergraduate education are digitally literate and that's not always the case. So we do have to think about the ways in which we develop our develop and deliver our instructional programs, especially around digital literacy. You know, I concur with everything that that Joe said, you know, I don't think any of our institutions have a monolithic student body, whether at the undergraduate or graduate level. And so trying to develop a program, an instructional program that addresses all the needs at all the times is a challenge for is a challenge for us. And so we try to rely on the instructional program that builds a foundation. And then encourages our students then to make personal concentrate consultation visits, if they need additional assistance either with us in the library or with their faculty member with our colleagues in it. Um, and, you know, but we don't know, as Joe said, there may be students not only who don't want to identify that they don't have the equipment, but they also don't want to identify that they don't have the skills. Anyway, or they don't have the appropriate, the appropriate skills and so while we can make ourselves available and accessible. So getting getting the community or students faculty to to come into us and say hey I need help with X, Y or Z. If it's not specifically tied to, you know, my assignment is due at the end of this week and I really have to do whatever the assignment costs for then, you know, that that becomes a real challenge that I'm not sure we certainly haven't been able to solve that problem. I'm not sure if anyone has no and I think that that's very true we were still sort of struggling with with a lot of these sort of challenges and I suppose that brings us to the sort of final part of our discussion how can we respond as a community, particularly as a kind of library and library community and I think I would really welcome also Catherine and Hannah your sort of reflections from the conversation as to how can we as a research library community do more within this particular space because I think we all acknowledge that it's something that while we've been aware of we have, have done some things but we absolutely need to do more especially as we move forward and I think we're all aware, you know the current pandemic is yes it's easing off, but this situation is going on for a wee while. And I think also just acknowledging what impact it has on people I think again, I'm really sort of reflecting on this lived experience and really sort of realizing what all these things suddenly mean. I think it's given it a real sort of more of a sense of urgency and sort of tangential kind of tangible kind of need to do something more about it so what can we actually do. I think I'd like to, sorry I know Joanne and I've just spoken but perhaps sort of, if we start thinking around about what's perhaps been happening in the US for opportunities, do you feel that you've had for collective action and libraries and there to sort of do particular things I think you've both highlighted that there's not a national approach to it but you know, thinking around about your experience what have you actively been able to do that perhaps we in the UK can learn from and take some inspiration from and then let's sort of widen this out to the wider panel as well. And who would like to kick off. And Trevor do you want to start please. So, you know, Joe referenced earlier that there is not really the type of coordination that maybe we would desire or that is necessary certainly in this area, or in many areas. And so, it's, it's the lessons that maybe learned by our UK colleagues are not sure what those might be. You know, we did. Many of us, I think did sort of take advantage if you will, of the past year and did provide access, both to equipment and broadband through mobile devices for for our staff within our library we were also able to develop some training for remote training interestingly for some of our staff members whose jobs it was, whose jobs were not easily done in a remote environment and so they were able to take on additional tasks that required the use of some skills that maybe they didn't have or needed to to be refreshed. And so, so that happened. I want to talk also a little bit about the sort of public library sector because that's where I think we see a lot more cooperation, if certainly not collaboration So, there's a universal service that, you know, is funded by through the Department of Commerce that provides incentives to was a telecommunications act that provides funding in the old days for telecom but now for internet services for public libraries and the American Library Association has been a strong advocate for the continuation of the universal services fee that is paid by paid into by both by the Department of Commerce and also by telecommunications companies so, you know, we all, many of us will complain about, you know, when we get our telephone bills there, you know, myriad fees and we wonder what all these fees are for but a portion of these fees at least goes towards subsidizing internet access in places that would otherwise not have it. And then Biden has also been going around the country touting his infrastructure plan and he believes that infrastructure also includes broadband and so there's a consolidated appropriations Act of 2021 that will, if passed, provide broadband connectivity to tribal areas really expand on the broadband infrastructure program that already exists the universal service fee and and also connecting minority communities in ways that they have not had connectivity before. Of course this is a plan and, you know, has to go through Congress but, you know, the just the idea that broadband access is being seen as infrastructure today in ways that it had not been seen before. I think is a positive step in that direction. One of our colleagues in the chat also referenced that different states will have different sorts of relationships with, you know, the state education departments or with other other public services organizations and we are one such states so the University of Delaware provides database access to the entire kindergarten through secondary education population in the state where a small state we can do that. But not only do we provide that access our librarians travel around the state to provide instruction. This is very focused instruction on the use of databases, but it is a component of digital literacy skills that our kindergarten through secondary education students do need to help them be better prepared for college or whatever it is that comes for them after the at the end of their secondary educate their 10 years of secondary education student. So there are some ways in which there are some coordinated ways in which higher education libraries are working, both with other higher education institutions or with state or local institutions to to help bridge the digital divide a phrase that was very popular here some time ago. But, but the broader efforts of collaboration and coordination, I think are still lacking. Thank you for that. Now, Joe. Um, well, I'll add a few things that I think are related to Trevor's comments. First of all, I, you know, Trevor mentioned earlier, the sort of, um, I think raised consciousness of, um, anti racism that is is in the environment right now to some degree for us and we've lived in a, as you all know and probably have also experienced in your own domains of highly fraught political environment for the last number of years. But I think that the combination of the in the United States of the pandemic and the deep into awareness of the continuing pervasiveness of racism in our in our society and culture have provided a moment of opening for civic civic engagement by universities, especially public universities in their communities. And I think that. And I think if we're intentional about how to take that opening and mobilize some of our resources to do more work for communities with historically unaddressed needs, we can begin to maybe have broader impacts on some of these questions of digital equity. And so the second point I want to make is, and this kind of follows from some of the comments that that Trevor made is there's actually also embedded in this in the most recent relief legislation that came out of the Biden administration, a the largest allocation of money to public libraries that's come to the states in in a well over generation. And in Pennsylvania. There is a cross sector conversation between academic libraries and public libraries going on. I'm actually going to be in a meeting this afternoon in fact about this, about how we might use that money that's come to Pennsylvania and it's a substantial amount of money, it's millions of dollars to the state library in the context of digital equity. So I think that there's an opening around these challenges in this moment that we have to have the courage to respond to, and we have to be pretty imaginative and creative and think about whether or not we can do some more systemic things on the build on the local work we've done because I do think this this moment of civic engagement is real it's intensely felt by university administrators. And it creates an opportunity for research libraries and academic libraries and public libraries potentially. Okay, let's include museums and other kind of public facing public good enterprises to come together and think about what you know what the systemic framework might be for doing some of this work and I'm not sure what will accomplish out of it but I hope we accomplish much more than we've done over the last you know decade. So thank you for those reflections Joe and Catherine you wanted to respond to some of those. Yeah, I mean it's building on what Trevor Andrew has said. And it goes back a little bit what I said about the digital ecosystem but actually the scale of the problem is that none of us working on our own is going to solve this and it's not is about public libraries research libraries higher education but also the community sector because they are very much doing an awful lot of this work. And I'm seeing through the chat people saying things that we can't get access to some of the basic digital skills. Well maybe or staffing you know it is related to funded students you know broadening our offer is going to be challenging for us well actually could some of these other organizations pick some of this up you know can we not work together to look at this. And then one tangible thing and I'll put the link after in a minute is that we have established now a data poverty lab. And this is going to be wanted to be a collaboration with private public and community sector organizations to really look at this data poverty piece. And so there's a link on that and we're encouraging people to sign up. I have no I can't see any reason why any of you guys cannot sign up and be part of this conversation and to be part of the solution. But I do think the answer is looking at our communities and looking at you know who is on our doorstep, you know not just the public library but actually is there another organization that's down the road that also we can be working with and and again linking what Sue was saying like linking the Wi-Fi together so you know, can any of our Wi-Fi be broadened out more so that we can actually support some of the local community in our area that are around our institutions. Can that then if the local library goes to this point, let's really think about this in a coordinated approach it isn't easy, which is why it's not happened before. But if we don't use the momentum of what has happened with the pandemic and the fact that at the moment if we don't do it now we're never going to do it I don't think. So let's use this let's turn what has been a really negative thing we've got to turn this around and we can only do it by working together. And you know we're always more than interested in talking to lots of different organizations and we were you know we're talking to so we're working with so we're trying to find ways in which we can bring this all together. But it would be great to bring in the research and the higher education into that conversation to. No and I think there's a great kind of question from the chat around about that potential for a sort of sexual approach from libraries across the whole UK higher education and I know Sue's got a hand up to kind of pop in but you know it is that how do we create that cross sexual library partnership that community practice how do we sort of link across and we are seeing some areas of good practice where research libraries are working more closely with public libraries. So it is perhaps just rethinking thinking at the box looking at new ways and working with our sort of sector organizations like Philip and Scotland so on to kind of start thinking a bit more about what can we practically do and how can we move forward. And I think you're right if we don't tackle it now we're never ever going to really sort of engage with this, but Sue do you want to come in as well. I want to say absolutely endorse everything that Catherine said, and I think actually you're right Kirsty out of out of turbulence comes change, and we've just gone through just about the most turbulent year that we ever have. It's put the strongest lens on this pro on this problem that that we're ever likely to get and if we can't mobilize reaction to sort this out I think we have a big problem. There's something in the chat about a part of a piece of work we did a couple of years ago about partnership working between public libraries and higher education, and perhaps just to say that in the UK to draw attention to the the knowledge exchange framework and the research excellent framework which which on top of which I was asked to go and speak about how universities could connect better with their communities in order to fulfill the remit of those two frameworks. And I think that that kind of the development of partnerships between public libraries and university libraries and health libraries. And as you say the professional organization sconell and silly, and other organizations that are interested in this within the UK is how it's not just in this form it's about lots of different areas that they can work in partnership to deliver a better community experience and and somebody I think I can't remember who said something about the universities being in a little sort of garden locked away garden that actually about bringing those those people together for all kinds of reasons not just around digital poverty is only going to be beneficial, I think, and we're not good enough at partnership working. I think all about horizon scanning about where those partnerships might be every time we want to do something. So I would absolutely agree with that we do just need to rethink and do so much more Hannah. Yeah I just sort of wanted to echo that idea that the momentum is really sort of building on this issue at the moment. And it's obviously people are only excluded in so far as they're missing out on what their peers who are online can get access to. So I think it's really obviously been exacerbated during the pandemic. And within my research, we're seeing that some people who maybe didn't previously see a real need to be online or real motivation. And now sometimes sort of realizing the benefits of being online and wanting to get involved in that so for both individuals who are digitally excluded at the moment, and also on a societal level. I think it's increasingly recognized as a person is a person issue that could be sort of built upon. And, and obviously, I think this idea of sort of working together cross sectoral is really important. And relating back again to this relationship between deprivation more broadly and digital exclusion so and, for example with housing, housing inequality is quite an important factor. And so my research has become quite clear that living in certain forms of temporary housing makes it really hard to get Wi Fi. Or in situations where people living in one room accommodation, actually getting space to sit down and learn how to use a computer properly can be really challenging. And, and that's something that it's very hard to see how one organization or institution could tackle that. And so it's something that really needs a more holistic approach, I think. No, and I really agree and I think just even reflecting on having sort of conversations with my kids teachers who were suddenly going, you know, I don't normally engage with digital because I can do everything, you know, in this particular format. But now suddenly I have to know how to use teams and actually that's quite scary but suddenly them understanding actually why this might be good and then sort of having an appreciation actually of what skills kids might need. And then that sort of linking to, oh, there are jobs and different sectors for which this could be quite critical. So I think it's been that real realisation that sort of kicked through quite a lot of different things. And I think again in universities we've got a particular role to play around about those digital skills and Christopher, if I could maybe bring you back in again. Yeah, sure. I think the, I mean it's interesting the wall garden analogy I think, I think it's changing. And I think that things are being put in place to incentivize that and encourage that change. I mean we, I was up in was pre pandemic but I was up in Derby and the university runs a bus service. It's quite an extensive bus service actually around the region to bring people in from rural areas to study but also that's available to the community and you know Northampton's fantastic example of a university that has social enterprise underpins what it does it runs all sorts of aspects of public service in that locality so I think there are examples that you know universities are they provide sort of legal services to the community they run museum they're doing all sorts of things so I think there's something about just continuing to incentivize and develop that and making sure that digital poverty piece is built into that. And then I think the second aspect of it I think is, you know universities are required of those colleagues in the states by our regulator which in England which is the office for students to spend money that comes from the fee that students pay on access and participation so to make sure that people from disadvantaged groups get access to universities. And it's about it's about a billion pounds per year spent and I think there's something about making sure that digital poverty and understanding digital poverty is built into what universities are doing through the money they're spending around access and participation as well. It's not only just making sure that they're spending that money but also that that's underpinned by an understanding of what works as well and that's what we're trying to build into how universities are thinking about the investments they're making in that area through. There's a new what works centre for example it's been set up around access and participation you know universities might send thousands of kids off on summer camps each year, but no one really knew whether that made any difference whatsoever so you know through randomised trials and various other tools behaviour insights that kind of thing universities are getting more sophisticated understanding what works I think we've got to build that sort of approach into understanding digital poverty and how we address digital poverty particularly as it relates to access and participation and students and then the third bit and maybe this is just me sort of feeling sort of, you know good about what we're doing in the UK but we also have some of these questions about coordination in the UK are probably a little bit easier I think and we of course have just which is that sort of UK wide national body. And we have the professional organisations as well like scunnel and an RL UK that I think can support people to coordinate and bring some of these things together and I mean just does a great job and often you know people don't see some of the stuff it does around procurement coordinating negotiations around open access and with publishers and copyright licence holders and those kind of things so I think I think sort of strengthening and supporting those kind of roles will be important to get that join up in that coordination as well. Thank you so much for that and we've had someone join our panel so Rachel if you would like to pose your question please and have we just lost Rachel is this our first technical blip it is indeed. Oh well there we go. Well rather than Rachel joining our panel and we will move on to I think a sort of final question and that we've got which is come from Mark Purcell and I think Sue you'd kind of sort of spotted this one but Mark was really asking what two or three tangible things and could research libraries do to help address digital poverty and I thought that was such a great question that I might just kind of go around all of you and say no if there are two things you think research libraries should do. And what do you think we should be doing more of and perhaps if I could start with you on this one Catherine and so couple of things that research libraries could help do to address digital poverty. So one, join the digital poverty collaboration I've just put in the network in the chat panel and be part of that conversation. And I think the second is to look on something like the online centres network or and have a look where are your local provisions for digital inclusion around your area that perhaps you could start to build some connections or links with, whether you're not, if you're unable to support some of the students with their digital needs you know could you direct them to there is part of that or is there something more about building a that starting to build that sort of collaboration in your local area. I think that would be my two, two things. Thank you. Sue you next. I think I would definitely say it's about building the partnerships to look at this in a holistic way, but also to go back to what I said earlier, I'd like to see somebody looking at the science of all this. You know, how, how can we harness the resources that we have for the benefit of all how can we turn connectivity into a utility. Thank you and Hannah next, what are your reflections as to what we could do. Yeah I would echo again making those community links and maybe also something to do with skills and rather than assuming a basic level of skills making sure that that skills support is there even in a very basic way. Brilliant thanks and and the US perspective on what we could do in the UK Joe and then Trevor. Again, I'm going to say, you know what others have said I do think the partnerships with civic entities, government and the public library sector with, you know, looking both at our local communities where we're geographically located in and more programmatically across what what we can do collectively that's that's one thing. I think another thing is is Trevor was talking about this a little bit earlier, how we create inclusive outreach educational programs that destigmatize for those who don't have either the skills or the resources. The path toward acquiring those things both in terms of hardware and in terms of skills I think creating an environment that really looks at inclusion as a framework that makes people that supports being comfortable. Getting access to the things that you know lack of them is also a lack of social capital so you're going you're dealing with that hurdle around. Sort of the personal embarrassment and figuring out what we can do programmatically there I think also matters for our students. Thank you so much and Trevor. I will echo everything that's been said before, certainly the partnerships are extremely critical, a very critical component of this work so partnering with our public libraries with other civic organizations, whether locally, nationally or globally, and, and then making sure one of the things that we've been extremely good at, and I think in academic libraries is our instructional programs and so, but making sure that those programs are accountable in the ways that Joe just referenced and try to destigmatize the need to for for those who need the help to seek it. And Christopher, what can we do. My two things would be some come back to what I made just now really be led by the evidence and, and what works. I think people can spend a lot of time and effort doing things but but but it's important to understand, you know, it's going to have an impact and you're using your resources effectively and there is a lot of evidence and information out there that could be used and then the other. The other one would be or would be to really support the points that have been made around partnership and collaboration, but probably from a university perspective for those research libraries embedded within universities I think it's about joining up within the institution as much as anything as well because universities are, as I've said are doing a lot more generally in terms of their strategies towards that civic engagement. So, so making sure it's, it's kind of joined up in that whole institutional approach.