State Librarian Ann Joslin told lawmakers on the Broadband Access Study Committee that libraries need assistance to provide much-used internet services to their patrons, for purposes including job hunts and more. “Clearly a lot of the public libraries have very little IT support,” she said, urging that libraries be considered along with schools for broadband help. Like schools, libraries qualify for federal e-rate funds that can offset the majority of the cost. “The public libraries certainly need the same level of support,” she said.

After hearing from her, Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, moved to include libraries. “There may be some reason we can’t do it yet,” he said, but he said the panel should “say to the Legislature: We think it’s important.” He added, “If we could only do one of the two, I’m going with schools, but we need to consider libraries that need the support too.”

Sen. Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, said, “We’re asking the school districts to kind of go out and do what the libraries have been doing … finding their own contracts, filling out their own e-rate forms. … If we have a technical support resource that they can use, that doesn’t have to be used, but is available, I would encourage developing that resource.”

Sen. Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, noted that the motion addressed technical assistance, not funding. “We’re not talking about the portion that e-rate does not cover,” he said. The motion passed unanimously.