United States

Since 2014, our team in the United States has helped to reimagine what – and where – a library can be. For the last eight years, the organization has piloted different ways to bring literacy resources and digital technology to underserved communities in neighborhood institutions.

• Wash and Learn Initiative: installing libraries in laundromats to bring essential information, books, and digital technology to working families and young people in cities and towns across the country.
• De puente a puente: turning storm-damaged and abandoned municipal buildings in Loiza, Puerto Rico into multimedia hubs that build community after hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
• Manufactured Housing Initiative: creating digital inclusion labs in low-income housing in rural Minnesota.

Today, Libraries Without Borders US (LWB US) is drawing on what it has learned to scale nationally. Beginning with a partnership with the Connecticut State Library, LWB US will transform the way that they engage underserved communities. The organization employs data-driven community engagement modules to determine who isn’t coming to the library–and why–and uses that information to come up with longterm solutions that can help bridge the digital divide, address book deserts, and mitigate the learning gap in marginalized communities.