Job seekers in need of computers flock to libraries
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- When Leona Thompson's job as a housekeeper dwindled to just a few clients earlier this year, she had to pull the plug on her home Internet service, just when she needed it to search for a new job.
The Greenville County Library, which has a branch near her home, offered a solution. But with so many job seekers in the same situation, Thompson, 53, found she usually had to wait 20 minutes or more to get a seat in front of a computer at the Greenville West Branch.
Once she did, she had to work fast, because she knew she might get cut off after an hour if someone was waiting behind her.
"So many places now, you have to do your application on the computer," says Thompson, who says she got an offer for a full-time nurses' aide position and was back at the library last week filling out paperwork.
Libraries across the USA are filling up with people waiting to get online to fill out applications, write résumés or look for job openings, a national study by the American Library Association shows.
"Libraries are really the first responder in this economic crisis, and particularly for job seekers," says Larra Clark, who managed the study due for release Sept. 15.
Eight out of 10 libraries nationally have someone on a computer waiting list at some point during the day, Clark says. At the beginning of 2007, before the economy took a nosedive, 44% of libraries nationally said assisting job seekers was a "critical use" of their library, she says. Now, it's 67%.
The increased demand comes in a year when 22 states have cut funding for libraries, Clark says.
"There's a lot of people to serve and in some cases fewer hours to serve them," she says.
Libraries are taking a variety of approaches to meet the need:
• The Waltham Public Library, in the suburbs of Boston, loans laptops to patrons for wireless use inside the building. Its five laptops have been loaned more than 1,000 times since the program began three months ago, said Kate Tranquada, library director.
