The Fact of the Matter

The American Library Association has put out a great infographic (delivered to me via the awesome book publishing blog Galleycat, and shown in its entirety below) to demonstrate how funding is down but usage is up. And important message and one we could all stand to be reminded of. While this these facts are of course super-germane to the subject of the book, one of the most interesting bits, to me, is not directly book-related: The very pertinent reminder that 35% of Americans do not have high-speed internet in their homes (and with the way websites are designed these days, not having "high-speed" internet might as well amount to not having the internet at all). So much of public life--forms, bureaucracies, appointments, and so forth--seems now to be set up on the assumption that everyone can just go online and do it (whatever the relevant "it" maybe be). We are not reminded nearly often enough that such sentiments are elitist and wrong.