自3月中旬以来，COVID-19已经导致美国各地的图书馆关闭。不到三分之二的美国人在农村地区的家里有宽带互联网连接。这个标记写了图书馆试图让用户在线的方式。很值得一读。

在爱荷华州切罗基镇，大约40%的学龄儿童没有互联网接入。切罗基公共图书馆馆长泰勒·哈恩（Tyler Hahn）对《标记报》说，他以前为该镇居民提供的许多服务不得不采取新的形式。图书馆全天候开放Wi-Fi，孩子们坐在停车场用**。哈恩通过大楼的窗户喊出指示，帮助老年用户上网。

“We have a lot of people who switched from shopping in stores to using Amazon for the first time in their lives, said Hahn. “Through the window, we were walking them through the steps.”

People have also come to the library to ask Hahn for the phone number to call to apply for unemployment benefits, since they can’t look it up online themselves, he said. They’ve dropped dollar bills through the book slot to pay for printouts of forms.

全国各地的图书馆也不得不采取类似的非传统方法。一些人在他们的社区周围安装额外的路由器，把Wi-Fi带到“流动的图书**”里，甚至把热点地区借给别人。不过，这并不是所有地方的现实解决方案：

Hahn, the Cherokee Library director, says he would love to lend out Wi-Fi hotspots in addition to the few Chromebooks his library has but thinks community need is so vast that any program he started with current resources would be quickly overwhelmed. The local public high school let students bring laptops home to use for their (voluntary) remote-learning program, but not hotspots, he said.

Several librarians independently said that their hotspot-lending programs are “just a drop in the bucket” or “just a Band-Aid” to the overwhelming need for reliable internet and the basic skills to use it.

“Even to work at McDonald’s, you’ll get a 30-page online application, and if you’re not comfortable with the drop-down menu, this is really going to be a challenge,” said Kate Eppler, manager of The Bridge at Main, a literacy and learning center in the San Francisco Public Library system.

其他图书馆则提供路边取书、举办Facebook现场阅读活动、向学生分发书籍和艺术用品、打印和邮寄失业申请书，甚至用3D打印机和缝纫机**面罩和盾牌。

“Never before did people need access more—in a day and age where the government is requiring more and more to happen online—than during a pandemic,” said Johnson [CEO and president of Brooklyn Public Library]. “It is a true perfect storm: The deprivation is more extreme than ever, and the need is higher.”

Markup的文章很好地展示了流感大流行对农村低收入社区的独特影响，是一本很好的读物。