Microsoft’s Gates to Donate $200 Million to Libraries

In a drive to dramatically expand the reach of computer technology in public libraries, software billionaire Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda French Gates, on Monday announced a multimillion-dollar donation to help usher libraries in the United States and Canada into the 21st century.

The newly formed Gates Library Foundation will donate $200 million over five years to help more than 8,000 libraries in rural and low-income areas develop computer resources for their patrons. In addition, Microsoft Corp., the company Gates founded, has pledged an additional $200 million worth of software to the effort.

While the Gates’ pledge amounts to one of the largest private gifts in recent memory, it also will serve to put Microsoft products into the hands of millions of computer users. The donation comes as libraries are looking for ways to bring expensive information technology to an eager public.

“We’ve been saying that we needed an Andrew Carnegie for the age of technology, and Bill Gates seems to have stepped up to the plate,” said Mary Somerville, president of the American Libraries Assn. “This will certainly serve notice to everyone of the critical role that libraries are playing in providing information for people who otherwise could not afford access to technology.”

That sentiment was echoed Monday by librarians in the trenches, who are nearly uniform in their eagerness to get their hands on the latest computer equipment.

“Bill Gates has made a commitment about the importance and lasting value of public libraries in the U.S. at a time when people have questioned whether libraries are going to continue to be around or would be replaced by computer chips,” said Susan Kent, librarian for the Los Angeles City Public Library, one of the original beneficiaries of the Libraries Online project, the forerunner of the new foundation.

“The money is wonderful,” she said, “but the symbolic gesture is one of the most important things that has been done for libraries in my memory.”

Gates has long made clear his intention to donate most of his personal wealth to charitable causes, but he had previously said he would wait until he reached the age of 50 or 60 to start unloading his massive fortune. In recent years, the 41-year-old Gates--now a husband and father--has changed course, giving $27 million to universities and libraries before the gift announced Monday.

The $200 million committed personally by the Gates family is at face value far larger than the $41.5 million that steel magnate Carnegie gave at the turn of the century to build 1,600 public libraries in America. But according to the book “Carnegie Libraries Across America” by Theodore Jones, Carnegie’s investment is worth about $800 million in today’s dollars--about twice the value of the resources pledged by Gates and Microsoft combined.

Of course, with a net worth of $18.5 billion, Gates can well afford such a generous contribution. And although the Microsoft products--including operating systems like Windows 95, word-processing programs like Word and CD-ROM titles like Encarta--have a street value of $200 million, the cost to the company of providing the software is far lower.

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The Gates Library Foundation, to be based in Redmond, Wash., near Microsoft’s corporate headquarters, expands on the 18-month-old Libraries Online project, which so far has funneled $5.5 million in cash and $10.5 million in software to scores of libraries in urban and rural communities alike. The Los Angeles Public Library received about $500,000 in computer software and technical assistance as part of the project.

“We realized we could do this with thousands and thousands of libraries and ensure that children and adults have an access point to technology whether they have a computer or not,” said Patty Stonesifer, a former Microsoft senior vice president who will serve as chairwoman and president of the new foundation.

Although there is widespread agreement among librarians that computers and the Internet can be important tools for learning and research, public libraries have scarcely had the money to buy the necessary equipment. Skeptics point out that although programs like Libraries Online help fill the gap, they also serve to promote the computer industry--especially Microsoft.

“Our approach has been different in that we didn’t wait until we were a multibillion-dollar company to do that,” said Jennifer O’Mahony, a spokeswoman for Microsoft rival Netscape Communications. “We took the plunge and donated our product for free for education and certain not-for-profit organizations a long time ago in our short history.”

Librarians certainly appreciate the support. Since the Phoenix Public Library opened a Libraries Online-funded computer lab with six PCs in April, the number of visitors has jumped 43%, said City Librarian Toni Garvey.

“It has changed tremendously the library service and access to technology in that community,” Garvey said of the south Phoenix community where the PC lab was installed. “Looking at the response it’s gotten from the community, it’s an absolute necessity to expand this to every branch of the Phoenix Public Library.”

Chris Hedrick, who has been with Libraries Online since its inception and will become director of the Gates Library Foundation, said the project has had a dramatic impact in some communities. For example, an initial investment in a single library in Brooklyn, N.Y., was followed by a commitment to spend $4 million to put computers in all 59 branches of the Brooklyn Public Library. In the rural county of Pend Oreille in northeast Washington, the introduction of PCs in the library spurred the creation of two Internet service providers in a community of 10,000 people, he said.