News: Announcements

July 6, 2012

Final reports from the in-depth studies will be released soon. In the meantime, we wanted to share a quick update from the Mobile Internet study. The Mobile Internet study explored the interplay between mobile phones, particularly mobile Internet, and public access venues in South Africa. Are mobile phones and mobile Internet making public access venues obsolete? Are they competition for public access venues? Or do users use their mobile phones and Internet in conjunction with public access venues?

July 3, 2012

To understand the role of social networking sites in social activism, this paper examines the April 6th youth movement’s Facebook presence and its evolution from a “Facebook group,” co-founded by two young Egyptians Ahmed Maher and Esraa Abdel Fattah, to a social movement mobilizing and coordinating protests on the street via skillful utilization of a “Facebook page” with technical features to gain the followers who would eventually take to the streets on January 25, 2011. To this end, we coded an archive of posts from the movement’s Facebook page and group in Arabic and the Facebook group in English from March 2008 through April 2011. This data set captures the movement’s Facebook activity from its inception to the consolidation of it as a mobilizing and organizing force garnering a broad level of support that crystalized in the first months of 2011.

June 27, 2012

As discussed in a previous post, communications & leisure tops the list of uses for public access ICT. While this is not surprising, use of public access venues for communications & leisure is often frowned upon, especially if the venue is publicly funded or has a development mission. Funders, governments, and non-governmental organizations of public access venues would often like to see lower use in the communications domain and higher use in other “development” domains such as government, health, and employment & income. The reality, however, is that communication activities, such as the use of social networking sites and emailing with family and friends, remain high across all types of venues. But does this mean other public access venue objectives, such as developing ICT skills and filling information gaps, aren’t being met? How do communications & leisure activities contribute to other objectives of public access initiatives?

TASCHA research on the role of public libraries and telecenters during a disaster was presented on June 23 at the 2012 American Library Association (ALA) conference as part of the panel, “Expecting the Unexpected: Libraries Respond to Profound Change.” iSchool PhD candidate, Beth Patin, participated on the panel on behalf of the research team behind the Libraries, Telecenters, and the 2010 Chile Earthquake research project.

June 22, 2012

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new site. As an organization that studies technology use around the world, it was an interesting journey to develop a system for our own center. We of course wanted the site to tell the TASCHA story, convey all the right information, be easy to navigate, and…

June 19, 2012

Global Impact Study Principal Investigator, Chris Coward, presented some of the study’s findings at the Libraries for Innovation conference in Vilinus, Lithuania on June 7, 2012. Chris presented on findings from the user survey, as well as top line findings from two in-depth studies, Mobile Internet and Infomediaries. Representatives from the Lithuanian library program highlighted achievements made over the past five years, as well as areas they intend to focus on moving forward. We’ll be posting more on the findings presented in the coming weeks, but for those who just can’t wait, you can download the presentation slides. Stay tuned for more presentations from the Global Impact Study… next up: IFLA 2012.

June 18, 2012

The Global Impact Study is mainly looking at six development domains: communications & leisure, culture & language, education, employment & income, government, and health. Communications & leisure is the number one used domain, followed closely by education. Employment & income use is high as well, with over 40% of all public access users surveyed using public access for activities in this domain. More episodic uses and perhaps less available in some countries, such as culture & language, health, and government, see less use.

June 6, 2012

Library assessment visit to Philippines with IREX as part of the Beyond Access campaign. Despite their large numbers, libraries remain outside most government ICT programs. There are lots of opportunities for libraries to play a larger role in national development efforts, though it will require greater coordination of government programs and a new mindset about the role of libraries. Davao exemplifies the potential.

April 25, 2012

The last few posts based on the User Profiles working paper considered the “access” dimensions of public access venues – where people access computers and the Internet and why they go to public access venues. The next few posts, including this one, will uncover who comprises the “public” component of public access venues, that is, who are the users of public access venues? This post will focus on two primary demographics of public access venue users: age and gender. Does the stereotypical public access venue user, young and male, hold up? Let’s find out.

April 10, 2012

The last two posts on findings from the User Profile paper described that many people only have access to computers and particularly the Internet at public access ICT venues. Public access ICT venues also provide many with their first opportunity to gain experience with computers and the Internet. However, as displayed in the last post, there are public access ICT venue users that do indeed have access to computers and the Internet at their homes. In three countries, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines, around a quarter to a third of users surveyed have Internet access at home. Even in the lowest household penetration rate, almost 15% of users in Bangladesh have Internet access at home. While we know that for many users, it is their only option for access, but what drives users that have access at home to use computers and ICT at public access venues? For many it is because public access venues offer better equipment than at home, which could also mean a faster Internet connection. Another significant reason is to see friends or be with other people in the venue. In Brazil, where users enjoy the highest percentage of Internet access at home, these are the two main reasons users visit public access venues.