City of Cambridge Participatory Budgeting

Committee: Culture & Community Facilities

Cost: $60,000

Location: Main Library, 449 Broadway

Short Description: This project will fund an iPad lending kiosk and 16 iPads, as well as a permanent interactive screen in the Children’s Room of the Main Library.

Long Description: One role of the public library is to provide a bridge across any digital divide within a community. The technology additions mentioned below will help to expand access for those who do not have their own devices or wireless internet.

A permanent interactive screen in the Children’s Room would foster collaborative learning among the city’s youth. A large plasma screen system would run changeable software programs that would be developmentally and thematically varied, and would support STEAM curricula and 21st century learning.

As mobile devices become ever more common, patrons are increasingly interested in borrowing tablets instead of using a fixed public access computer. An iPad kiosk is a system where a patron inserts a library card and an iPad is checked out and released. Upon return, the kiosk charges the iPads and maintains the settings – functions that are too technically labor-intensive for busy public service staff to do manually. The self-sufficient kiosk will enable the Library to circulate 16 iPads to the public. This would help to alleviate the sometimes long waits for desktop computers and allow city residents to use the latest technology in the comfort of their own homes.