Digital equity in higher education

Building on pandemic relief and recovery programs, the United States federal government is making historic investments in advancing digital equity, literacy, and inclusion for all. An important component is the 2021 Digital Equity Act (DEA), which provides $2.75 billion over five years to promote digital equity, literacy, and inclusion initiatives at the local, state, and national levels. While past federal funding for digital equity and inclusion targeted individuals or K-12 school and public libraries, the unprecedented level of funding offered through DEA is available to libraries of all types—including community college, college, and university libraries. This chapter provides background on the legislation, enumerates the covered populations and communities, outlines potential digital inclusion activities that could be funded, and describes the process for academic libraries wishing to seek funds from state and federal sources. It describes steps taken at the national level to activate and engage librarians and advocate on behalf of libraries with the federal agency administering the funds. Additionally, since over half the funds will be spent by states, this chapter includes a discussion of consortial involvement in the state planning phase in Illinois and Louisiana. Our hope is that readers appreciate how state and federal library advocacy efforts rely on individual library involvement and understand how the DEA provides an opportunity to leverage federal funds to expand the work of academic libraries to advance digital equity for their communities. Because there is unlikely to be another opportunity like this in our lifetime to further the good work libraries are already doing, our aim is to assist librarians in seeking funds to support covered populations in their communities.