ILWACO Timberland Regional Library is a participant in two high-speed broadband projects recently funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). These projects will help bring faster Internet service to more than 100 community institutions in underserved areas across Washington state. Thirteen of Timberlands library buildings are expected to benefit from the projects.

The projects are funded by the U.S. Dept. of Commerces National Telecommunications and Information Administrations (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The ARRA provided a total of $7.2 billion to NTIA and the Department of Agricultures Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to fund projects that will expand access to and adoption of broadband services. Chehalis, McCleary, Naselle, Mountain View (Randle) and Salkum will be upgraded to high-speed broadband connections in the first project. Four additional Timberland libraries, Centralia, Ilwaco, Raymond and South Bend, already have high-speed connections, but will receive infrastructure upgrades.

Over the last five years, TRL has upgraded network connections to 14 of its 27 libraries to meet the needs of patrons using public PCs and free Wi-Fi access. The BTOP projects will fund broadband connections into most of the remaining library communities.

These two federal grants are expected to create jobs, attract economic investment to rural areas, and provide reliable, high-speed Internet access to schools, libraries, emergency responders, hospitals, government agencies, businesses and individuals.  Both projects are expected to be substantially complete by the fall 2012 and fully complete by the fall 2013.