Computers are used in libraries all over the world to provide access to a range of electronic information resources and to manage materials (books, journals, videos, and other media) held in particular collections. For many people, barriers of income, age, gender, or race can limit their access to computer technology and thus to the wealth of information that is available to others. The public library, with its history of providing free information, may offer access to the Internet and make a range of information sources available to everyone. Increasingly, via funds from national governments or from philanthropic agencies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States, relevant software, hardware, and network connections are being made available in public libraries so as to minimize this digital divide.

The huge size, complexity, and cost of early computers in the 1940s and 1950s...