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PUBLIC LIBRARIES LEADING THE WAY 

Gathering Strength to Combat Access Inequality 
How a Small Rural Public Library Supported Virtual Access for Public School Students, 

Staff, and their Families 
Julie Lane 

 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES | JUNE 2022  
https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v41i2.15161 

Julie Lane (jlane@peclibrary.org) is Technology Resource Centre Coordinator and Educational 
Resource Consultant, County of Prince Edward Public Library and Archives. © 2022. 

Prince Edward County (PEC) is located east of Toronto and covers approximately 1,050 square 
kilometers. PEC is a part of the Hastings Prince Edward District School Board (HPEDSB) and have 
a total of 6 public schools, one Catholic school, and one private school. The other county serviced 
by our school board is Hastings County. The County of Prince Edward Public Library (CPEPL) 
system of 6 branches services just under 25,000 residents and countless seasonal visitors during 
the tourism season. Our public school board services approximately 15,000 students across 7,220 
square kilometers and 39 in-person schools and a K-10 virtual school across the two counties. 
Starting off a technology column with a bunch of statistics is not exactly how I figured I would 
write this. However, context is key when discussing equity and access; and in this piece, I intend to 
highlight how both of those are made significantly easier to achieve for community stakeholders, 
with the presence of technology and education.  

When the stay-at-home orders were announced in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we 
knew that we would not be able to hold our scheduled and planned public library programs. We 
turned to live streaming story times, maker programs, and author visits, all using what equipment 
we had on hand—tablets, laptops, and the internet.  

Once it became clear that students in the public schools would not return to in-person learning 
within any short amount of time, all school boards in Ontario ensured that enough Chromebooks 
were purchased so that every student had their own dedicated device, with the assumption that 
providing a device meant all students could participate in remote learning. Teachers rushed to 
transition their teaching plans to an online format; school administrators scrambled to schedule 
safe device pick-ups for students; and parents were not only juggling professional responsibilities 
and parenthood, but now teaching and tech support. Although school boards provided tools to 
meet the “classroom” requirements, they could not ensure that every single student had access to 
a high-speed internet connection, nor could they offer school library access remotely. This is 
where the CPEPL was able to offer support.  

The global shut down had a significant impact on the relationship that the CPEPL had with the 
schools in our County. A large focus of mine was to rebuild those working relationships to support 
students, staff, and families, and ultimately demonstrate in actionable ways how the local pu blic 
library system was there for them. One immediate way I thought we could demonstrate support 
was through lending our Wi-Fi hotspots. Hotspot lending programs through public libraries have 
gained popularity over the last few years. Although our program had been in place for nearly 5 
years, I am always surprised at the number of people that do not realize it is an available resource. 
With that in mind, I persistently reached out to the school administrators in our area and set up 
meetings to discuss how our Borrow the Internet program could benefit those working remotely 
without reliable internet. Wait lists for our 9 available hotspot devices drastically increased, but 

mailto:jlane@peclibrary.org


INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES  JUNE 2022 

GATHERING STRENGTH TO COMBAT ACCESS INEQUALITY | LANE 2 

our patron community was incredibly supportive of our students and would frequently request 
that their loan, which is at maximum 7 days in length, be passed to a student. Though connecting 
families with internet hotspots was helpful for the required online learning, we could not fill the 
gap completely. If we had an unlimited communications budget, the situation would have been 
easily remedied, but, as we all know in the Library world, budgets can be very tight. This fact 
pushed us to find creative ways to bring as many resources as possible to the students, staff, and 
families in our community.  

To broaden the reach to individual schools (and staying persistent with that outreach), I focused 
on not only ensuring that school communities knew what physical resources the library had, but 
also what electronic resources were available. These conversations and emails with school 
administrators led me to get in contact with the curriculum coordinator at the board office. This 
connection was a complete game changer. Instead of us, as a public entity outside of the school 
community, contacting individual schools and trying to build relationships with teachers, 
librarians, and administrators, we had the person who oversaw all of the school librarians, library 
technicians, and curriculum development for the K-8 grades on our side. The coordinator was on 
board to help us make the desired connections with the schools in a number of ways. She put us in 
contact with the curriculum coordinator for the secondary grades (9-12) and our program and 
service list was sent from the board office to every teacher, principal, school librarian, and library 
technician in Prince Edward County. We were then able to set up a meeting with the coordinator 
of assistive technologies for the board, which set us on a track to completely revamp how we 
marketed and allocated our resources to schools.  

It became clear in our first conversation that we needed to get students connected with their 
public libraries as quickly and efficiently as possible. With students split between in-person 
learning, virtual learning, or a combination of the two, with still minimal to no access to school 
library borrowing, the online resources of the public library system seemed like the perfect 
solution. Not only would connecting students, staff, and their families with their local public 
library be a way to get everyone reading, but we were fulfilling the opportunity to ensure that 
everyone had genuine and equitable access. What the school board had observed was that the 
required shift to remote learning made the inequality of literature access glaringly obvious. 
Students who relied on their school library for reading were not getting that opportunity and 
students who had individual education plans were jumping through hoops to get digital copies of 
material. So though everyone had a school supplied Chromebook, not everyone had the same 
access. This is where public library subscriptions to Hoopla and Libby came to the rescue for 
providing current and popular literature in a variety of electronic formats for students to 
immediately access for both course reading and leisure enjoyment. 

Connecting with like-minded, growth- and education-oriented people is incredibly empowering. 
The curriculum coordinators at the board office were so enthusiastic about connecting students, 
staff, and families in our school board with their public library that it made the next parts of the 
process not only successful, but fun as well!  

The curriculum coordinators and I created a presentation that we brought first to school 
administrators in Prince Edward County. Having public library advocacy come from the school 
board was incredibly influential and a big step toward issuing library cards to students. Once we 
had buy-in from the school administrators, we circulated registration forms for families to fill out 
and get everyone in their household public library access. We found that the easiest way to do this 



INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES  JUNE 2022 

GATHERING STRENGTH TO COMBAT ACCESS INEQUALITY | LANE 3 

was using Google Forms. It was simple for parents to fill out and easy for library staff to glean the 
required information for card registration. Since the library was also working with the virtual 
school, we needed to be able to issue library cards even if some students were not in our 
catchment area. It was common for virtual classes to consist of students from the smallest village 
in PEC and all the way up to the northern most part of Hastings County, a full 3 hours’ drive away. 
CPEPL was able to accommodate this need. PEC is a tourist destination and frequently issues cards 
for visitors staying in the area for an extended period of time under the rule of if you “wo rk, live, 
or play” in PEC, you are eligible for a public library card. Once library cards were set up or 
renewed for all families who requested them through the Google Form, I got to work teaching 
students and staff how to access library resources.  

After communicating with the curriculum staff and public school administrators, it was decided 
that creating an information presentation on getting started with Hoopla was the best course of 
action. Hoopla is an incredibly intuitive application in regards to the format possibilities (eBooks 
and Audiobooks) as well as adjustable features within each format. The available settings and 
adjustment options make the reading experience comfortable and accessible as possible for users. 
Also, since there is no wait time to borrow materials, this allowed entire classes learning remotely 
to all check out the same title and read together. The material presented to students was easy to 
understand and interactive. The session provided ample time for students to follow along and test 
each feature in the Hoopla App with their own individual book selections. The best part? This 
presentation was just the starting point.  

While we were only able to schedule and virtually deliver this presentation at two in-person 
schools, the other five schools in PEC and a number of primary classes in the virtual school still 
participated in the Google Form for library card registration.  

Teachers started asking what else the public library had to offer to enhance the curriculum 
delivery with additional resources. Many community teachers were reminded of the Public 
Library’s services and resources (beyond just Hoopla) and reached out for class visits or access to 
materials. Other schools outside of our Prince Edward County catchment reached out and 
connected with their local public libraries, or vice versa.  

We are still working to develop ways to meet the needs of students, staff, and their families 
through the public library. Some schools in the northern area of the region have students coming 
from multiple, different public library catchment areas, and most of these libraries do not have the 
same resources as others, especially in the case of smaller systems. This posed an issu e of 
equitable access for students: Why should some students in the class have access to library online 
resources, and some not because they come from different/smaller communities? We were able to 
mitigate this issue with the virtual school, but for students attending in-person learning, we could 
not give library cards to every student in the school board. Thankfully, another public library 
system in our area stepped up their access to offer virtual library access to any student or teacher 
in Hastings County (so everywhere except Prince Edward County).  

This recognition of the importance of equitable access enabled students to not only regain access 
to a public library system, but it also ensured that all students could access books in the way that 
best suited them. When I ask a class if listening to an audiobook counts as reading, it amazes me 
that the majority of the class say “no.” Or if I ask students if they had ever read an eBook, some 
would say it was not a “real” book. These comments and notions are not only untrue, but they are 



INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES  JUNE 2022 

GATHERING STRENGTH TO COMBAT ACCESS INEQUALITY | LANE 4 

also exclusionary. Countless students need other formats than just printed materials. How many 
would benefit from listening to an audiobook along with reading a printed version? How many 
students dislike reading because it is just hard to see the words, but if the text was more spaced 
out, or a different font, it would make all the difference? How many times is a student not able to 
access a book they want because all available copies are already checked out at their school 
library? These are issues students in the classes I work with face. Having a public library card can 
significantly ease these barriers to access.  

All in all, we processed hundreds of card requests and renewals and were able to powerfully 
illustrate to teachers how they could meaningfully integrate public library resources into their 
classrooms, either virtually or physically. Our requests for library visits came back up to pre-
pandemic levels, but we were working with more schools than we had previously. Teachers were, 
and still are, reaching out and asking if we can get extra copies of books, or if we can lead virtual 
novel studies. One of our more popular pieces of progress is the integration of our coding 
programs with other subjects. Currently, I am running a ukulele program where students are 
writing group arrangements using binary code as the basis for composition. We have classes doing 
art projects with robotics and integrating math learning objectives. We have done virtual story 
time and connected the story to creating Scratch programs. The possibilities are endless , and now 
that we once again have the interest from teachers, we are working with them to support their 
students and all the learning that comes with incorporating technology and maker-thinking into a 
classroom environment. The momentum has not let up, and we are beyond thrilled.  

Our communities and local school board have embraced the reality that public libraries are more 
than just books. Public libraries are a critical part of any community and have the power to be a 
meaningful component to education at all levels. Having schools and all educational stakeholders 
using public library services not only broadens the reach of a public library, but also broadens our 
advocacy potential. We know there is still a long way to go in terms of genuine equitable access, 
especially when it comes to technology. Internet connectivity and technology literacy are just the 
tip of the iceberg, but when organizations support each other to truly serve their community, 
collectively, that is how you make change.  


