ABSTRACT
The expansion of the wireless access offered by libraries has been driven by a number of factors, not the least of them being the tremendous growth in the numbers of devices capable of connecting to wireless networks and the parallel increases in the bandwidth available via wireless networks; and it has been constrained by insufficiently elastic budgets, confusion born of competing technologies and standards, and the other demands on the network bandwidth that is available to libraries.From the perspective of academic libraries, the growth of wireless networking will continue to extend the reach of library services. However, academic librarians understand that educating and serving users whose primary contact with the library is through network interfaces is a major challenge, because it requires new approaches to instruction and service.The critical issues for public libraries appear to be economic and managerial. Many public libraries cannot afford the bandwidth necessary to meet all of the demands of their users, and these libraries have commonly exacerbated the problem by diverting available bandwidth from wired connections to support wireless services. In many places, it appears that such tactics have caused the overall quality of Internet services to decline. Some improvements can be made through the more rational configuration of access to the Internet, but the only “real” solution in the foreseeable future appears to be assigning significantly higher financial priorities to Internet services.
