As a happily displaced librarian, I am especially pleased to share the following endorsement of the Minnesota Broadband vision! Thanks to Peg Werner and others for making it happen!

Everyone in Minnesota will be able to use convenient, affordable, world-class broadband networks that enable us to survive and thrive in our communities and across the globe.

Whereas: the twelve Regional Public Library Systems and the State Of Minnesota provide a broad array of critical library services via the Internet to support student learning and critical decision making by businesses and private citizens; and

Whereas: broadband, or high speed Internet, is essential to individuals today and increasingly essential for community vitality, including competitive economic development, affordable and quality health care, equitable education and effective government; and

Whereas: vast areas of Minnesota and thousands of Minnesotans lack access to affordable and reliable broadband services that meet or exceed the federal broadband standard of 25/3 Mbps; and

Whereas: the long and short-term benefits of achieving our broadband vision will be spread widely across our entire Minnesota community, while failing to reach our broadband vision will sentence some rural areas to second class status and permanent decline;

Now therefore, the twelve Regional Public Library Systems adopt the Minnesota Broadband Vision and encourage the Minnesota Legislature and Governor to provide sufficient leadership, resources and legal framework to ensure that the State of Minnesota achieves this vision by 2020.

Resolved 21 April 2016
… with some local variations noted
By the Governing Boards of the following Minnesota Regional Public Library Systems:

Arrowhead Library System
East Central Regional Library
Great River Regional Library
Kitchigami Regional Library
Lake Agassiz Regional Library
Metropolitan Library Service Agency
Northwest Regional Library
Pioneerland Library System
Plum Creek Library System
Southeastern Libraries Cooperating
Traverse des Sioux Library Cooperative
Viking Library System

Vision created by participants of the Minnesota Border to Border Broadband Conference, Nov 18-20, 2015