private-sector provider to serve grimm townships in a county that is the most underserved in michigan and now has a broadband connectivity. those public-private partnerships are definitely a way of life force by the economic downturn but showing success in a lot of fake kind -- companies we work them. >> linda we are both from states that have a lot of rural libraries that rely on e-rate and pots to serve the community they have. how will these proposals help those libraries that are the furthest behind? >> also any thoughts about rural areas where we have challenges in terms of making investments at all? >> yes, absolutely.

i am proud to say there's no cable tv. that is a very difficult thing. christie the first part of your question. >> how will that help the libraries that are the furthest behind? >> they are definitely focused on those libraries and there would be a way to determine. that way hasn't been figured out yet but there would be a way to determine which libraries desperately need to begin a pilot project to get that connectivity. >> okay we want to keep our efforts here on time. we have a couple of other questions. there was one question are there any studies or

experiencexperienc s of the low. >> versus high-speed libraries in terms of service quality and for i.d.? i think one of the challenges you know as we as she said linda salbi said that none of not everyone has said it. we all know for the most part it's really bad out there and we have to get connectivity better but i think the real challenge is do we really understand and can we imagine what it would be like with better connectivity and even if we had it we are still not there. the next day something new will come along so it's amazing to me that 50 of your main libraries and i'm sure some of them are small could come up with uses for increased broadband. i would like to thank our panel and ask you to step down as we appreciate your efforts. [applause] so now read if you would join me up here on the podium.

i am being joined by reed hundt who is the former chairman of the federal communications commission and as we heard today really i want say grandfather but maybe godfather of the e-rate. he is currently the ceo of the coalition for green capital in nonprofit group that promotes the development of national and state banks. he was the chairman of the fcc from 1993 to 97 he was on president obama's 2008 presidential transition team. he sits on the board of directors of intel corp. and mitigation software firm smarts guy networks and a financial

services firm. he is a vocal proponent of libraries. it is appropriate that we and with his remarks given a lifelong commitment to improve broad than connectivity is one of the original architects of the program and we are so pleased pleased to open this up with our chairman wheeler and in this with chairman reed hundt. we are very honored to have those two chairman acknowledge the importance of libraries. [applause] >> thank you very much to this susan for hosting everybody here today and also to susan benson who is my friend and client because they represent her as a pro bono lawyer at the fcc. you all know that susan is the ceo of the early library counsel. first a personal note. my sister is the head librarian

in rockville maryland and my nephew is a librarian. my mother was a public schoolteacher. my brother is a public schoolteacher. my sister-in-law is a public schoolteacher and i once was a public schoolteacher. in washington they would be called takers but we regard ourselves as a family that has had a long long commitment to public service. i am very proud if i could be so bold to say that i import the library community. now i would like to express some of the realities of the situation and everything i say is going to be good news. the library community folks we need to step up our game. we are in the playoffs. we need to aim higher. we need to pull together. we need to fight more fiercely and we need to understand that this is something we can handle. it is critical that everyone understand the political

realities that face chairman wheeler and face the fcc. the before i go into more detail i want to make sure that you understand that i was not in fact the creator of e-rate and the leadership is critical in every walk of life but particularly in politics. and i want to recognize the two principle leaders who created e-rate. first i'll gore. it was in the winter of 1993 and 19904 owl called me to his office he was a senator elected vice president of united states and he said if i could persuade president-elect bill clinton to make you the chairman of the fcc i will do it if you promise to find a way to have the following occur. i want every school girl in

tennessee to be able to go to the library of congress without buying a bus ticket. i want all that information digital and i want the most remote schoolchild in the poorest community of the united states to have access to it. from the beginning the vision was schools and libraries information are all in it together. and then he said my father is the principal author of the interstate highway act. this is going to be the digital equivalent. a lot of that has happened but that wouldn't have happened but for the fact that about three years later senator olympia snowe i note a republican, has said to me you why the fcc chairman. how would you like to pay a

visit to bangor maine. i cannot announce anger correctly. close enough? somehow doesn't sound the same woman that says it doesn't? so i flew up there was senator snowe and we went to a school and she gave a wonderful talk to the students and she took me to the library at the school and she said in the future this is almost 20 years ago she said in the future there won't be that many more of looks here. it will all be digital. i want to make sure that all the digital information in the world is available to every single child goes to the school or any other school in the country. it came down to a critical vote in a divided congress and all the democrats wanted al gore's vision to come home true and for a whole bunch of reasons that are characteristic of partisanship and not

bipartisanship the republican party didn't want anything al gore advocated to come true and olympia snowe stood up in front of everyone else at a commerce committee and she said i'm voting with the democrats. 10-8. that is how it passed into law. there were two republicans and one independent who wanted to vote against it so we would have lost at the fcc and not been able to pass the rule. i told and of the story the other day. olympia snowe stayed up until 3:00 in the morning working the phones calling the republicans and getting them to vote yes. and then at 730 in the morning she said i really don't understand why

a so thanks to susan benson in

the last two weeks for urban library council did a survey of 33 major libraries in the united states, more than 100 different buildings and that survey demonstrated in these libraries that not one single one has one gigabit a second connectivity to the buildings and when you pull out the handheld device that you measure the wi-fi at 4:00 p.m. in every single one of the major libraries, these are the major, the biggest live racing united states. in every single one the wi-fi connectivity is inferior to what it is in the suburbs of the united states in the homes. in homes. how can anyone think that the hundreds of people in this building now are getting anything like, anything like adequate access to the internet? what is the meaning of adequate access? of things you have all heard over the last several hours being able to download a job application and to fill it out. being able to go on line and take a course, being able to

enroll at code.org and learn one hour learning to code. these are not the things that al gore and olympia snowe knew would be the demand case years later but they knew that something like them would be the demand case. 30 million americans every single year ago to a public library for free access in order to improve their careers. that's one tenth of the population. and it's not the same people every year. over the course of just three or four years the majority of adult americans go to a library to try to get a job or improve the job they have. this is the importance of public access. you all have studied. you have all shown that there is popular opinion behind this vision. now let's talk about some of the statistics and i want to go right to the core of an issue that has plagued us today since it started two years ago. first schools or libraries which

is more important? schools or libraries? i think it's a false choice. i think we should talk about al reg about what libraries need and that should be some amount of money and schools need some amount of money and when you add the two together you know the total you need. it doesn't mean a different tax base. it is an mean you need to think about them differently because they serve overlapping population but it's a way to figure out what you really need. nevertheless i do want to compare the two because when you talk about needs and statistically useful terms. libraries constitute about 20% of the number of openings in schools. libraries on a visits per year basis are 20% of visits the visits to schools every single year. if we talk about potential users there are four times as many potential users of the library says there are schools.

if we talk about the number of registered users and libraries there are more than two times as many registered users and libraries as there are children and teachers in schools. if we talk about the actual internet access which john was just talking about more than two times the number of internet access users in public libraries as in schools. so whichever way you want to measure you actually have metrics so whether you look at it as building 20% or look at it as users in terms of two times in four times then you have to compare against the following. e-rate money how much is gone to schools? the law clerk was talking to his earlier about the shortfalls in data gathering. as best as anyone has been able to guess and it is not to the credit of the fcc that they have not made the data transparent but they are making a transparent because laura and

susan have been pushing them on this and they are willing to be pushed. this fcc is willing to be pushed. we still don't even know how much money the e-rate has paid out to schools. the best guess, it's about 3%. 3% is 20% proportion of buildings and it isn't anything like the relative proportion to the number of users and libraries. all we can say about 3% as it hasn't produced the desired result. because when susan's group did the measurement in these libraries in less than 10 days because modern measurement tools work just like that, just like that. when we did this measurement what did we discover about what i have told you? woeful state connectivity. if we have statistically valid survey i think it was you krissah told me you were guessing it was about 400 libraries and i think i'm remembering right out of the 17,000 buildings we need to

survey about 400 in order to have a statistically valid survey. it's going to prove the status quo is really deficient. let's not talk about the size of e-rate. it's roughly $2.4 billion. it was said at $2.25 billion in 1997 but one of the things they regret is we did not put in a cpi inflator at the time when we set the number. excuses they don't stand up to scrutiny, it was a mistake. if we adjusted for inflation the e-rate would now be $3.5 billion. if we adjusted for the relative size of the economy now as opposed to what it was then the e-rate should be three to $3.75 billion. if we look back over the last 10 years into those adjustments and say what should've been the e-rate spending over the last 10 years we come to the following conclusion. we have a shortfall of $10 billion.

that's how much the country owed to itself and didn't pay. this is exact to the same infrastructure story that you see with respect to roads for dams or any other future in the public landscape. that's the reason why the connectivity is so woeful in the library buildings and classrooms today. we weren't spending that money for the last 10 years. if you say we just forgot that's not the reality of the story. the reality of the story is libraries and schools as always a ride in the middle of the culture wars in our country. that's the reality of the story. it's all well and good for me to tell you that we somehow manage to pull off the e-rate. from the minute the e-rate was passed there has been political opposition to the e-rate here in wash into d.c.. from that very minute. it was called the gore tax. there were ads that were run against it.

there were attacks on the people who ran the original administrative structure the person i recently appointed to run that program was personally attacked and vilified and accused of waste fraud and abuse which he did not commit and finally they drove him from office. that's why it ended up at usac usac. there were challenges to the constitutionality of the spending. i could go on and on but i'm saying to you all there is not a broad taste consensus in washington d.c. about what to do in this room there might be but when i say we need to step up our game it's because it is not fair to take the greatest visionary and leader at the fcc in this century tom wheeler and say thanks a lot, here's what we need. you are on your own. we need to be behind him supporting him and our time is short. i'm going to translate what tom said because it's really important.

first of all the model is the marginal wi-fi user at peak hours. it is not just broadband in the building but broadband in the building plus wi-fi in the building. we have to talk to them about it and everyone of our buildings. if someone is going to write the checks you don't go in and say i don't really like what you want to buy. besides you all know that this is the case you want to build for us so that's the data we have to give them. the second he told you he is not going to be funding pots as you were saying we have to have a transition plan either fast or little bit less fast but it has to have a because that's what he told you. next it's not just more money. why not later than june the fcc intends to insist that libraries figure out how to have consortium bidding. i'm just quoting here. we have to have longer time

periods for these contracts. we have to have reference pricing so that nobody pays too much. everybody pays the lowest reasonable price. we have to figure out how to provide i.t. experts are libraries that don't have i.t. experts. we can't have the nonexperts leapt out at told to fend for themselves or they pay too much and we have to have limited projects that run right away starting with the june order at the fcc that generate data so that by not later than the end of the year a more permanent program can be put in place. the reply comments on this topic are due on monday. we all should remember that if we don't hang together we are going to hang separately. we need to do a better job starting with me meeting and talking and figuring out what to say together and then when you all go to the hill in may and talk to all the members this has to be at the top of the list.

all the institutions in the civic landscape libraries get the smallest amount of money from the federal government. of all of them. smaller than schools, smaller than health care, smaller than any other situation you can think of in the social landscape. the total amount of money that ice on your budget i signed your budget viewer and power to transfer to state libraries, 155 million. that isn't even noticeable in the department of education budget. your agency didn't exist until 1997? >> and we wanted out. >> exact date. i have all these teachers and my family. i'm not saying anything against schools. those needs have to be met to map but this group needs to say what are our needs and we have to stand up and do the math. we have got the reply briefs due next monday. the first week in may under the

leadership of john chambers over here at the fcc who knows more about libraries than anyone who ever was employed at the fcc. we have a working group where we have to actually get to the conclusions about the administrative process reforms. we have got to do that so he can start writing is ordered in may so the order can come out out in june that establishes the new administrative processes and that also talks about how the fcc is going to be spending its money in the next cycle. in terms of general big picture for many many years the entire community that has benefited from the e-rate has understandably because of the constant culture wars has said just hold on to what we have got. that is what we have had to do just because of the constant pressure but that is not what the fcc is telling us. this fcc is saying instead of looking at it as a x dollars

every single year why did you, and tell us we will bunch a whole bunch of money right up front. it will be a capital expenditure the way john has been talking about it. more money up front once and for all put fiber to all these ill things. we will provide caching technology. we will have one single model for every single building and then your maintenance costs in the years later will be less than the up for and costs. this by the way is the way every single member -- network in united states is built. it's only in this sector that we have an embrace that model and we are being told by the fcc bring us the plan we will pay for it. we have to get the plan out and it has to be technical. susan demonstrated to me that there is plenty of confidence not in every library but a bunch of libraries to deliver the the

i.t. planning. susan heldreth could do it and you can talk about pots. this can all be done. there are a lot of libraries where the i.t. competence doesn't exist and isn't funded by the local municipal governments and doesn't need to be funded. it doesn't have to be that you have the cisco trained ip professional in every system. it ought to be 50 or 100 can serve the entire country meaning everything needs to be transparent. that is why we want to be on line. all great library deals out to be public for all libraries. in fact every library ought to be goading themselves and others on every quarter by reporting to the fcc every single quarter now and forever how it's going. which is so incredibly easy. it wasn't easy back in the old days. though sold based on exist now.

it's really easy to do these measurements. we just have to say you know the date is going to make us free. now to what level are we going to upgrade? when we are talking about the surge spending if you forgive the phrase what level are we going to upgrade to? there is no doubt whatsoever because all the comments that were written on april 7 all support this. the fundamental idea has to be fiber in the building that is capable with today's electronics of delivering one gigabit a second but that is not the future. the future is the one gigabit will become 10 and become 100. the way fiber works and this ths a lawyer explaining its once you get the glass in the ground and the electronics later to upgrade the bits per wavelength that is a comparatively lower expenditure. we have to be focusing on first getting what john wayne hauser and his group called the capitol expenditure in place. second as to the wireless local area networks the comments and i

was up late last night reading a lot of them and haven't quite finished yet but they make it really clear there are several basic categories of funding that are necessary. the maintenance, the caching, the routers the internal networks which in some cases have to have wired components. it's not that complicated. we should be presenting to the fcc one or two basic models and saying these are the models with variations that all libraries should be utilizing. there are some comments that say you know the libraries really shouldn't do consortium bidding. all those comments were from the people currently supplying to libraries. god bless them. they have actually done a wonderful job but they are not looking out are the biggest bang for their buck. this is a buy sell transaction. you are talking about haggling, we have got to be doing some haggling. why should libraries be able to

opt out of consortiums only if they get a better deal by opting out? no one should be saying i want the federal government to give me money so i can opt out so i can pay for a worse deal. we ought to be willing to create an app and he willing to say to the fcc that we will hang together because we don't want to get bad deal separately. we need to allocate by priority. although comments make it clear there has to be some sense of equity in the prioritization of the fcc. there are variations on what equity consists of but for sure it is an adjustment by income. it's an adjustment by the number of users for sure. so that you will see presented a formula. they are printing other formulas that we all have to agree on a sensible allocation of formula. if we were on the titanic it would be women and children first. this is a post-gender discrimination air that we are

in. we do have a formula that reflects some sense of needs because the fcc isn't going to fund 100% on day one. number two is absolutely going to be necessary that we understand the fcc needs to come out with an order in june and that will not be the final order because it is also going to be the case that these pilot projects have to be done in data has to come back and then we need to revise and change our thinking. but by the end of the year we should have fulfilled tom wheeler stream. he wants to reimagine the e-rate. he told us that he wants us to be collectively the andrew carnegie's of the century and with a little help from bill gates. we will need a lot of help from bill gates. but this is an incredible opportunity. we have to take it. actually i know we can take it because when i look back at the

conversation with olympia snowe and i look at the results the reality of internet access in the united states from the year olympia took me to the library and maine internet access in the united states was led by access to schools and libraries. in its first 10 years it was led by access to schools. the united states led the world in having a generation come onto the internet. we have in fact in that generation the highest percentage of internet savvy people of any country in the world. ..

we will be continuing to discuss them over the summer. we know we are at an historic crossroads for libraries and

access and next-generation broadband. we expect many issues discussed here will become more developed in the public's fear as the fcc continues toward modernization of the e-rate program and eventually asks congress to weigh and. i have no doubt that the public record established today will help inform those conversations that we could not have done with tunnel of love participants in the audience. i wanted thank or virtual audience who have been joining us. these platforms demonstrate as right here in this library the possibilities that improve broadband. i want to make sure everyone is aware that written comments will be accepted and must be received before april 24th, next thursday, in order to be included in the hearing record. if you're compelled to submit comments or those of you out there virtually joining us, please feel free to share them with those by april 24.

finally, thank you to the staff and the library. thank you to our staff. it is fabulous to be here, and i keep looking out there. it looks like the, activity is good. we will have to do some speed testing. this is why we are here. we are making a difference in the nation's capital. if we can do that, we can do with everywhere. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> tonight on c-span2 and our interview with astronaut steven swanson on the international space station. atlantic magazine writer makes the case for reparations to the descendants of slaves. later, a discussion about how to improve internet access and libraries. >> tomorrow on c-span the iowa state republican party convention.

>> one of the things people did not always recognize is that during the war of 1812, fought from 1812 until after 1814, early 1815. it was really about the -- america reestablishing its independence against the british. this was sort of our second american revolution. this flag is the object for wage francis scott key pinned the words which became our national anthem. >> the image in 1995, the flag was made to look coal and restored. they're is a whole bottom section that was reconstructed. when the flight was moved, it

was a deliberate decision by the curators not to do that again. what we wanted, the flag becomes a metaphor for the country, tattered, torn, but still survives. the message is survival of the country and the flag. we are not trying to make it look pretty. we are trying to make it look like it has endured and can still celebrate its history. >> learn more about the flag francis scott key wrote about wildly toward the smithsonian star spangled banner exhibit sunday night at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv this weekend . >> astronaut steven swanson is commander of the international space station in orbit 260 miles above the earth. we talked to him about the space station and space exploration in

a 15-minute interview. >> commander steven swanson, welcome to c-span. >> thank you very much. >> host: if you would not mind, tell us a little bit about the current activities of the international space station, how many members of crew you have and generally what you were doing. >> guest: the great question. we have six crew members up here right now. three russians, to americans, and one german. mostly what we do is science up here. over 170 experiments going on right now, but also we have to maintain the station and keep it running smoothly and efficiently >> host: commander, with the science experiment you are currently conducting can you tell us a couple of things,

generally what areas they fall into and why is it that these need to be conducted in an atmosphere such as yours. >> guest: yes. so, they vary tremendously. we have outside the house of magnetic spectrometer, which is looking for dark energy and dark matter. something we are trying to figure out the basic physics of our universe came to be. from that we go all the way to a human research on our bodies. how do we change in a microgravity environment, specifically our eyes, muscles, bones, and we are looking in detail about that which can have applications on earth with people who have different diseases. we get to see it at a more rapid pace of pier. that is pretty much for all the science. the idea is that things change appear enough that people can analyze how different pieces or

science objectives change in this microgravity environment. it is just different than on earth which gives us another data set to look and compare to, and that gives them a lot more understanding of the problem. >> host: so commander, because you are up there in the microgravity talk a little bit about the extent of the science. are we talking basic research or advanced research? >> guest: well, it is both. i feel advanced research is looking for dark energy. also advanced research in combustion and cancer research, looking at t-cells, but there is also basic science research, trying to understand basic physics properties. it is both. there is just so much science going on. it is just amazing. >> host: experiments that you conduct, how many are nasa sanctioned, taxpayer funded, how many come from private sources,

experiments you take on from other sources? >> guest: you know, i don't really know the numbers, but they definitely come from different areas. we have some nasa ones, some from the european space -- space agency, the japanese space agency, the russians, and a whole group which takes science experiments from all over the u.s. and combines them into a group from that area. they did to the be on board. it is a difference -- the whole bunch of different places. i just not know the exact numbers. >> host: you spoke about life in microgravity. i suspect -- and you kind of address this -- the toll that it takes on your body. can you describe what it is like living there without gravity, and if you could move around a little bit to give folks a sense of what it is like. >> guest: yes. that is a good thing. first of all, anything you hold

just floats when you little of it. that is good and bad. if i don't watch this, and about ten seconds it will float of. that is a negative. moving around is very much fun. i will give you a quick example of something to you can do. it -- [silence] i am not a dynast on earth. this is the only place i get to do that. >> host: do you hit your head? how long does it take to get used to? >> guest: definitely at the beginning it is more difficult. we have competitions. you have to get their rotation without any side movement, and you can see how many rotation's you can do before you hit anything. >> host: give our viewers a sense of how long gestation is.

what are we talking size was? >> guest: it is about the volume of a 747. it is quite big, quite large, about 250 feet long. in certain spots it is maybe 130-140 feet wide. it is actually quite a big. only six people up here, so it is not crowded at all. >> host: you said there were six people, again, from different countries working together on this. what is the working relationship like between the countries? >> guest: it is a very good working relationship up here. we have trained together beforehand as a crew, and so we got to know each other very well. we worked together on a daily basis and really have no issues. there are always differences, but we have learned those. we are all good friends, and it

seems to go quite smoothly. >> host: here on earth there are current issues concerning tension between the united states and russia. you have three russian cosmonauts on board. to those issues it discussed, and do you get any discussions about what is going on on earth? >> guest: yes, they do get discussed, just like any news event. we all discuss it. it is not like there is any negative to it. we understand there are politics going on. we also understand it does not affect our work and relationships. it really does not affect us, but it is discussed. >> host: what are the nature of the discussions like? >> guest: that is a good question. it varies, of course, on the topic. on the u.s.-russia relations we could build into more politics of the country and more of the

details about the culture and what that means in each country. if you break it down that way, you can kind of see what is going on of little more clearly. >> host: on the science side, commander, for instance, if russia decided because of relations they wanted to pull back on work at the space station how is the united states affected by that, and how are the science experiments affected by that? >> guest: well, right now the science is pretty much separated between the u.s. side, which includes the european space agency, canada, all of those, and then the russian side. the science is somewhat separated. however, we do require the russians for us to get up here and get back down right now. hopefully in a few years we won't need that, but right now we need that to happen. that is probably the biggest deal right now.

if we can't keep up here, we can do the science. >> host: commander, you can move around if you are tired of holding that position if you want to take the mike with you. as far as manning and staffing of the station, much of that now depends upon commercial aircraft what has been the experience with these commercial spacecraft stopping and supplying the station? >> guest: right now they are just supplying the station, and we are very happy that we have american cargo vehicles coming up. it is a great advancement. these are good vehicles. it does offload our dependence upon russia and other countries for that. so we are happy about that and definitely looking forward to the next development when we do get to a crew and american vehicle which will change our dynamic quite a bit. right now it is just cargo coming up. it matter of fact, we will have

one here in less than a month to give us new food and science to work on. >> host: as far as -- you said that next step, what is involved in the next step and how did things change? >> guest: yes, that next step is actually proving that the vehicle is safe for humans. we have a few companies who are bidding for that opportunity right now. once they start into that project, the end of that project by 2017, we will have a man to test of an american vehicle at that time, and they will probably do one test flight may be to station, maybe not. from then we will be rotating crewmembers on the american vehicle. >> host: how much input do you and the other crew members have to these private companies? how is it received?

>> guest: i personally do not have employed. nasa does have input. i believe it is received quite well from talking to folks to do that work. because these companies want to of succeed. they want the contracts and want to build a good vehicle, they really do. they do listen and try to make the best vehicle they can. of course it is a cost analysis going on at the same time. they can't build, you know, the most luxurious cadillac out there. however, they build a good vehicle. >> host: commander, you talked about moving forward, 2017 you talked about. as far as the station itself, how long is it going to remain functional? >> guest: that is a good question. right now i believe it is on paper and tell 2024, and that is just more to certify the life of certain components and also for the resupply missions for certain things.

so it could go wonder if we wanted. it all depends upon where we want to spend our money. >> host: what do you mean by that? >> guest: well, if we want to go -- nasa budget is limited, and a portion of it goes to space station and keeping it running. so a different task we want to take on, signaling to the moon or mars or an asteroid or whenever it happens to be, we might not be able to do both at the same time given how big each plan is. >> host: what is the role of the station in future manned space flight pass and then? >> guest: right now future of space flight, the station is a test bed. we test all sorts of things up here. right now we have a recycling system for water. we recycle our water, everything , and we need that if

we're going to go other places. and that is just one example. we are testing out new technologies that will enable us to go farther. >> host: you would say the station is needed past 2024? >> guest: that is a good question. i am not sure. it would definitely be a good test bed for all sorts of things. we can easily get things up and down from here, more than you could from a longer mission. that is why you want to make an update to your product or equipment. you can do that more quickly. it is a great test bed. however, again, a limited amount of money. >> host: say by 2024 nothing is decided, what happens? does it fall to earth? >> guest: well, that will be a decision for management.

consider the politicians and the nasa administration. however, if it is decided it is no longer needed, it will deorbit and burn up on entry. >> host: commander steven swanson, we every day go through our normal lives here in a gravity atmosphere. what is it like on a day-to-day level, in a weightless atmosphere? tell our viewers some of the things you may not expect about living in space and the things you may have to overcome because of the environment you are in. >> guest: year out. it is really the simple things that are much more difficult up here. getting up in the morning, shaving and getting yourself ready. about 20 feet behind me. i do not have to go for, but things like that in the morning. you do not have a sink to wash up and.

brush your teeth differently. eating is a chore because everything floats, again. it comes in packages and wants to go everywhere. all of these little things, and even tying your shoe ends up being differently. you don't have gravity, so you have to be more flexible. all of these little things you did not think about make it a little less efficient to be up here. however, there are benefits. we love it up here. it is a fun thing to do. looking out the window is fantastic. it cannot be beat. >> host: commander steven swanson, though, once you return to earth what happens? how does your body just? >> guest: that is the good question. we work out two hours every day year to help in that return. the idea is our muscles will be strong and our bones will not

lose bone density. that way when we get back we have to worry about our new vestibular system. once that gets back under control, which varies a lot between people. once that gets back under control you are still strong in your bones are good. it takes about six weeks' worth of rehab and you are back up into the 95 percentile, maybe higher than that on how you are feeling and what you can do. >> host: when you return -- how long have you been on board the space station? >> guest: i have been on board about two and a half months, and i return in three months. >> host: your background is in computer science. how do you end up an astronaut on a space station? >> guest: a good question. i did go to work for nasa, which was a big help for me, and i decided being an astronaut was a goal. it really what i worked on was

aircraft control systems. that is what my main work at nasa was on. that played into working on the shuttle and helping out. then i just got lucky on the selection process. there are some many qualified people to try to be astronauts. it takes a little bit of luck to get in, and i happened to get a little bit lucky. i had all of the requirements needed and a little bit of luck, and i made it. >> host: in about 30 seconds tell us about the best experience you have had on board the station itself. >> guest: well, the best experiences always looking out the window, and the best way to look out the window is not have a window in front of you. and that is going on a space walk. it is a good time, a fantastic feeling. a little pressure on you at the same time, but, boy, it is quite an experience and something am looking forward to doing again. >> host: commander steven swanson, who is on board the

international space station talking to us about experiences there. commander, thank you for talking with c-span. >> guest: my pleasure. take care. >> when i started covering congress, you have people like senator russell long, wilbur mills, howard baker, people who were giants in their own way. a couple of those guys got themselves into trouble, but overall these were people in new -- they were all very intelligent. they knew how to craft legislation. they knew how to do the deal. it was their party or the other party. there was politics, but at the end of the date they usually found a way to come together and make decisions for the good of the country. today you just don't see that

anymore. first of all, i think the quality of members of congress, the house and senate, in terms of their intelligence and their work ethic has diminished. they are still great people, and i should not malign -- there are wonderful members on both sides. i think increasingly people are driven by the politics and by their own self survival. you know, i think the hardest work they do is raising money. making speeches and positioning themselves to get reelected. >> emmy award winning journalist and investigative reporter lisa myers is leaving washington d.c. behind. find out why sunday night at 8:00 on c-span. >> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and keep public policy events. every weekend book tv, now for 15 years the only television

network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2 created by the cable-tv industry and brought to you as the public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> atlantic magazine reiser has an opinion piece this month making the pace for reparations. we talk to him about the article on was talk to him about the are on washington journal. this is 40 minutes.>> "washingt" continues. host: ta-nehisi coates >> host: how do you define reparations? >> guest: we define it as america coming to grips with his own history and taking into account all of the consequences of that history. history, the bd part and the good part. host: what does that mean? guest: in the case of african-americans, it means accepting the relationship between american government,

american society, and african-americans has for most of our history not been a positive one. the fact that we decided about 50 years ago that we would have some politics in which we would stop doing some of the negative things we had been doing does not make the consequences of the past go away. they have to be directly addressed. host: you mean money. guest: i do, among other things. i do not mean literally mailing a check right now. that would not suffice. i do not mean hush money. so weot mean money given never have to talk about this again. money is part of the process. reparations, by which i mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences, is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. guest: that is exactly it. money is part of that. one of the things we try to theblish in the piece is

way people traditionally think about the african-american community relationship with the state is one in which we have segregation. we have collared only signs, colored only water fountains. we have the lunch table and black people sit over here. it is not simple. it is not wealth being extracted out of one community to benefit the other community. of america.history in youru indicated piece, about 16,000 words in this cover story, if you want to you it at atlantic.com -- have also indicated that federal policy has been discriminatory. i want to read a couple of examples. division,cs of racial the record is mixed.

guest: whenever you have a conversation about reparations, people say we are just talking about something that we can end right there. the 20th century, you can still trace a line of policies to disadvantage african-americans. that includes some of the folks who set the most progressive policy, the new deal, which was passed on the backs of white supremacy. it would not have been possible without white supremacy. social security was written in such a way that 65% of african-americans who would have been eligible, 80% in the south, were not eligible. welfare, what we call 10 of --- tanf, was written in much the same way. the g.i. bill, the housing , were designed in the

same way, to exclude african-americans. the mechanisms by which american families built wealth in this country have excluded the black community. african-american community and see social and economic indicators. it is not a mystery at all. it is explainable. host: the new jim crow, you ande, quoting a history political science professor at colombia. one collaborator america's democracy could not do without. guest: that is exactly right. people believed democracy was in doubt, the onset of world war ii. we see fascism rising in europe. his book is called "fear itself." there is great fear in this country. it passed policies to deal with this new era. of this country, the highest priority was white

supremacy. north --you in the this piece focuses on chicago, so i do not make it sound like a southern problem. but the democratic south, the solid south as they call it at the time -- its highest priority was white supremacy. they were not going to pass any social legislation that compromised that. host: we will get to chicago in a moment. i want to get these other facts, writings, on the table first. he said this quickly. i want to read it straight from your piece. the omnibus programs passed under the social security act in 1930 were crafted in such a way as to protect the southern way of life. old-age insurance and unemployment insurance excluded far more -- farmworkers and domestics, jobs heavily occupied by blacks. roosevelt signed social security into law, 1930

5, 65% of african-americans 70%-80%ly, and between in the south were ineligible. protested, calling the new american safety net a sieve with holes just big enough for african-americans to fall through. with --oming to terms that is what i am talking about. proud of social security, of the g.i. bill. the flipside of that is to come to terms with the fact that some cution of our populations out. what are the consequences? it is not like african-americans were emancipated in 1865 and the countryside, welcome. you are free to enjoy the same rights as everybody else.

one of the big things we talk about is housing policy, redlining. outlawed until 1968. living african-americans went through this process. host: who is clyde ross? i-91-year-old man living on the west side of chicago. i hope he is watching today. he might well be. mr. clyde ross was born in mississippi in the 1920's, when mississippi was majority african-american. but the majority of people living in message -- in mississippi could not vote, had no political power, his family being among them. his family had some means, some land. they had horses. they had mules. they had cows. a chicken. all of which was taken from them on a false tax bill. they were reduced to

sharecroppers. he spent his childhood in mississippi. his childhood there was people taking things from him and giving them to other people. separate but equal, when you see schools, a black and white university system, remember that african-americans in a state like mississippi were taxed, asked to pledge fealty to the law, to build facilities they could not attend. i am being asked for schools i cannotgo to, pools i visit, libraries i cannot borrow books out of. this is the systemic thunder that mr. ross into her for the first 18 or so years of his life. the senator in mississippi at the time, whose name i am forgetting -- theodore bilbo --

i remember. i am going to use the word he used. to keep the knee grow away from the voting booth, do it the night before. negro away from the voting booth, do it the night before. ross fought in world war ii, decided he could not return to mississippi, went to chicago, was able to get a job. did not have to deal with jim crow customs anymore. when he went to buy a house, he was cut out by the greatest wealth opportunity in american history, home ownership. african-americans around the country were cut out of that process. buying on contract was a particularly onerous rent to own scheme. you have all the disadvantages

of home ownership and all the disadvantages of renting. you owe somebody presumably a mortgage payment, but not really. you do not build equity. should you miss one payment, you are kicked out of the home and they keep all the money. mr. ross somehow managed to hold onto his house. but there are swathes, literally thousands of people, who bought their homes in that way in chicago. it is estimated that 85% of african-americans in chicago during this period both their home through a contract. host: this was -- guest: 1950's. , 1950's. it is made possible by a policy of the united states which did not believe african-americans to be responsible homeowners. host: like the home owners loan corporation, the federal housing

administration insisted on --trict the quotas restrictive quotas. the 1940's, chicago led the nation in the use of these restrictive covenants. neighborhoods were effectively off-limits to blacks. what is the neighborhood of north lawndale? now, it is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city of chicago. 95% african-american. it was not when mr. clive ross and the people we profiled moved there, but quickly became that way. there was a tendency to look at the way people move throughout society, the way people relocate, and to think people are merely expressing their own preference. the policy like redlining, which meant that when african-americans move to your block, you were no longer eligible for fha-backed loans --

everything got harder. was government policy, bank policy at the time. it was toward the people moving -- white flight is a direct result of social planning. it is not an autonomous process by which white people looks down the block and said, i would rather be around my own. there might be some of that, some level of prejudice. what you had policies that basically buttressed prejudice, that made it very inconvenient if you were a white person and wanted to live in an integrated neighborhood. you had activists who were trying to create an integrated living environment. country, of of this the state of illinois, of chicago mitigated against that, and we have north lawndale. host: speculators in the 1950's

and 1960's knew there was money to be made off white panic. guest: again, this is private enterprise. some of the lowest private enterprise you can imagine. met clyde ross, the first thing he said -- i said, why did you leave mississippi? he said, i was seeking the protection of the law. i did not understand what he meant. he said, we had no black attorneys, no black police. we were outside of the law. that is a theme you see even has he moves -- as he moves up to

chicago. if you have a set of policies and exempt black people -- we are not talking about the criminal justice system, the educational system. just on housing. say, this is for everybody else, but not for this group over here. the predators are outside of the protection of the law. how would that happen? ist: ta-nehisi coates national correspondent for "the atlantic." he has the cover story this month. it is about reparations. there is the cover. charts of chicago as well, showing some of the redlining. we would like to get your views on what we have been reading so far.

with reparations, you are either for it or against it. let us go a little deeper and a little further out. how long did you spend on this story? the issueu feel about of reparations prior to your research? in 2010, i made a blog post saying i was not in favor of corporations, and i was at the time. in debates with other writers around issues, relating to some of the problems we had in the african-american community, is that there was something that was not being talked about. issue, for instance, about what schools african-americans go to, and why they go to those schools. i think beneath that is where african-americans lived.

an issue like gentrification. obviously beneath that is how much money african-americans have to remain in neighborhoods they want to remain in. why do african americans live in certain places and why do white people live in other places? i are african-americans the most segregated minority in the country? why is the wealth gap funny-one? what happened here? it is hard to avoid the fact -- you mentioned the restrictive covenants. people have deeds in this state and other places they can show you, and it says, this should not be given to jews, negroes, or other undesirable minorities. our policies have been very explicit, up into the 1960's, about how we were going to regard african-americans, what policies they were going to benefit from.

if the state has effectively said, we are endorsing african-americans, punishing african-american success -- the idea that it would be any me asent began to strike absurd. what should we do? conclude, as i have, that ,he policy has been to strict you have to believe that some of that wealth should be returned. wells fargo bank, in 2009, half the programs in baltimore whose owners have been granted loans between 2005 and 2008 were vacant. 71% were in predominantly black neighborhoods. it is really depressing to talk about this. -- notls fargo case is right now, but in the past few years -- if you go and you read

reporting,ts and the there is nothing particularly hard to see about what wells fargo is doing. it is very clear as to how they regarded the people who they were offering these loans to. wells fargo realized that the african-american community was a community in which people had traditionally, in the history of this country, then cut out of wealth building opportunities, and was desperate to build some well. they went with african-american churches, public figures. they went to black people and told them, here is your opportunity. what they gave them was subprime loans. it is very important to make here. we have looked at

african-americans. we have compared them for credit. everything you might think that would explain this, besides -- african-americans still got worse loans. it is the fact that these people are segregated and are sitting in this one particular area -- it makes explication very, very efficient. a barrel.ing ducks in they are all right here, in this contains space. you do not have to look for earmarks. they are right there, because of american policy. you keep saying we wrote the story, but your name is the only one on there. guest: this was a two-year process, and i think my great editor, how much we went back and forth -- if you want to put a case for reparations on the cover, there is going to be a lot of back and forth. checkers.out my fact

what they did to make sure that -- making was correct sure every sentence made sense. a teaml like it is effort. i did write it. we have the maps. as a full package -- i am sorry for everybody i did not mention from "the atlantic." that is why i keep saying "we." host: is there a book out of this? guest: i hope so. host: republican line, you are on with ta-nehisi coates of "the atlantic." caller: i did read your entire article. we have a subscription. i discussed it with my husband. a very basic, basic

question for you. oft is your interpretation collective guilt? to be able to have reparations, you are going to have to convince a majority of the white population that they have collective guilt. what is your definition of that? catholic, but i do not feel i have collective guilt for persecution of the jews in the early church. nor the spanish inquisition. german, but i do not carry collective guilt for hitler and his atrocities. white and i am a child of the 1960's that came of age in and i have always

felt like there was progress, idea thaturt by the all white people in america have collective guilt for what happened to african-americans. it hurts me to my core. i love people. i treat everybody with love. and that is what i have to say. on the case for reparations, yes or no? caller: it depends. first of all, you have to convince me i personally have collective guilt. and then there is going to have to be a structure similar to office, aurity, or an national office of reparations, where people would have to go to state their case, how they have

been harmed by white people. and i think it is going to be awfully, awfully hard to implement. host: mr. coates? guest: you obviously did have the article and even have some plans. you went further than i did. i appreciate that. i would like to shift the frame away from collective guilt to collective responsibility, which is more important. i try to make this case. we recognize ourselves as americans, as part of a larger state, art of a larger society. we understand the state outlives us, that it does think that we do and youy did not are responsible for. i was obviously not alive when world war i was fought. but i was one of those who pay pensions for the veterans who served in world war i. i was not alive at the time of the american revolution, but i

celebrate on july 4, like everybody else does. a state,are part of you assume responsibility for what the state does, and that outlives you. we have these conversations about the national debt. we have these conversations about climate change. we have any sort of conversation about what the future of america is going to be. we invoke our children, grandchildren, the world beyond us. somewhere within that is the notion that when you are part of a state, part of a nation, part of a society, that it is broader than you. a state in which you are only responsible for that which you actions you do, the individually take, is a failed state. it cannot be possible. the state would have to regenerate itself virtually every generation. we have dealt with reparations cases in the past. the state of north carolina is paying reparations to african

americans because, for many years, the state of north carolina had its hospitals sterilize african american women coming in to have babies or routine procedures. the state is paying out right now. that means every citizen in sterilizedina african-americans? of course it does not. did every north carolina and think it was a good idea? of course not. it has state realizes responsibility. in the 1980's, when we made a decision to give reparations to japanese-americans who were interned during world war ii -- is that mean that every person who was alive thought it was a good idea to in turn japanese-americans during world war ii? some of us were not even alive. what we recognize the idea that those were done in our name. we are american. patriotism means something beyond our self. it means we are responsible for things, both good and bad, that

we do not personally do. when you have a policy that was done, a policy that was executed , in our names as americans, there is responsibility for that. stand up and to talk about how great the g.i. bill -- every president lise to talk about how proud he is of the g.i. bill. if you want to talk about what was good about american policies, the beacon of democracy, all the great things we have done in our history, it is only fair that we talked about the responsibility we have for those things. you do not get to just open up your paycheck and not open your bills. you have to deal with both. that, to me, is an elevated form of patriotism. host: i am going to read a series of tweets. normally i would not ask you to respond to all of these, but it is all along the same thing.

i think you'll get the idea. guest: what can you do about that? if people want to read the article, i will have a discussion with them about the article. people who want to remain in their own ignorance, there is not much that can be done.

i am obviously very enthusiastic about having a conversation about people who take the issue seriously and stop you do not have to ultimately agree with me, but there is not too much i can do about that. host: where did you grow up? guest: baltimore, maryland. host: college? guest: i dropped out. i was never a good student. host: when did you become national correspondent for "the atlantic"? but i have recently, worked for "the atlantic" six years now. host: graduated from howard? started left howard and writing. i have been writing since i was 20 years old. almost 19 years now. riding for a while. i have been writing before that, from when i was about six years old. my mom had me right essays when i did anything wrong.

it has been a consistent thing through my life will stop i started writing when i was in college, and i loved it. i could not believe somebody questions,ou to ask to report, to go out to a city and ask questions of poor people that you were uniquely curious about, and then write it up. i have been doing it ever since. i am going to read more from "the case for reparations."

guest: that is a very, very important -- when you write this, you have to deaden yourself emotionally. it has an effect. it makes you feel a certain way. that is a very important paragraph. you see "a colored man of means," upwardly mobile, being equated with criminals. that was the policy of the trade groups in this country. that is what it was. during that time we had the greatest wealth building opportunities in our history, that was our attitude. we have some responsibility for that. host: you talked about similar suits pushed against corporations such as aetna, which insured slaves, and lehman

brothers, which was a founding -- whose cofounding partner owned them. host: the ivy league schools in the north, many of them, and how much, or wealth is built off slavery. brown university did a magnificent report some years ago on the brown brothers. one of the great educational institutions in this world. how much of their wealth and how much is built off of slavery and off of slave trading? you cannot get away from this. get out ofgoing to this. it is one of the great forces in american life. not arguably, i would say definitely, and you cannot isgine modern america as it without thinking about slavery and all the things that came out of it.

thanks for holding. caller: good morning and thank .ou, mr. coates i grew up in the jim crow south. i was pretty young then. i do not know how to explain this, because i saw it for what it was as a young boy. guilt -- you white are talking about justice. this is so important to me. robinson, when he was on, i wanted to thank him too. jim crow is so incredibly disgusting that a little child could see it. it is amazing to me that we have not done anything about this. you can here i am breaking up a little bit, because i saw this

in reality. and it is really disgusting. whatf we -- i don't know we can do, because it is very difficult. but i know what i would do. and everybody would be really mad. toould give free education every african american person in this country, and i would make sure it was a good education. and i would help them in every way i could think of. breaking up too much. thank you. you do not really go into the house. -- the how. guest: one of the reasons why i did that -- you are talking about 250 years of enslavement in this country. african americans were slaves in the colonies and in this country longer than african-americans have been free in this country. you are talking about 250 years labour, of theft.

after that, you are talking about the greatest wave of domestic terrorism we have ever seen in this country, directed that african-americans. you are talking about the blazek -- a sick pondering of the right to vote in the broad swath of this country. you are talking about nonenforcement of constitutional amendments, the plunder of tax dollars to put up institutions african-americans were excluded from. you are talking about property, body. one of the most heartbreaking stories -- this comes toward the end. when mr. ross talks about his brother, winter ross, who had an , was taken toure parchment. it was effectively slavery in the 20th century. it is a mississippi prison. esther ross and his family heard that his brother was there. they went to get him and were

told he was dead. you were shocked to hear this. they asked for his body and they said, what do you want his body for? body.er saw his brothers he effectively disappeared off the streets of america. that is an individual example. we have to deal with new deal legislation that it actively cut african-americans out of all these wealth building opportunities. the shape of our cities could not be what they are without white supremacy. it is impossible to imagine. we wonder why, in a city like d.c., where we live, why african-americans live on one side of the park for the most part, and not on the other side. we think this is magic. it just sort of happened out of nowhere. bill we cannot quite pay off. nothing to make this totally right. but what can we do? what is the best way?

once we have acknowledged our history, what is the best way? america begins in black plunder and why democracy, features that are not contradictory but complementary. 1860, the majority of people in south carolina and mississippi, and about half those in georgia, about 1/3 of also the dinners were black. the state with the largest number of enslaved americans was virginia, where in certain counties some 70% labored in chains. their backs, the economic basis of america and much of america was erected.

next call, jim, in midland, texas. how you doing? thanks for c-span. how you doing, mr. coates? guest: all right. how about yourself? caller: good. two questions. many -- the first question -- how many generations of --ple is a going to take to the like people are going to be basically racist for how long because of slavery?

how many generations is it going out?ke before that smooths is, what isestion your definition of racism? thank you very much. guest: i will take the last one first. at a root level, because of a basic belief that something genetic about you makes you superior to somebody else, superior to somebody else. and everything that follows from that -- the right to subjugate people because they are inferior to you, the right to take possession of people's bodies, property, families, because you feel superior to them. the second question is much more difficult. as a lot of people have pointed out, we have an african-american president. thatmust necessarily mean we are not quite as racist as we 1968, or certainly not

in 1948 or 1848. but we are making progress. i believe that reparations is part of that progress. not see it as, over the long term, a divisive process. i think it is a process by which , in this situation, we look at each other across the room. i have a feeling someone has taken something from me, and you have a feeling that something unfair that you cannot quite name happened. part of the reparative process. one of the examples we talk about in the piece is the example of germany paying reparations to israel. there is a strong argument that deal was as good for germany as it was for israel, and perhaps even better. is, we all have to imagine what if germany said nothing? what if it never apologize, or ,ave some sort of pro forma never paid anything to the folks of victimized during world war

ii? is that a world that we want? think we can look at ourselves and say, are we going to be better off or worse off for facing our history? what are we so afraid of? what are we scared of? what do we think we are going to lose by acknowledging what happened? host: the atlantic.com is the website. if you want to read, he see -- piece,a-nehisi coates' which he worked on for about two years, there it is. you can go online. 10 people contact you online? guest: twitter is the easiest way, probably. host: twitter is the easiest way? peter in alexandria, virginia. caller: please do not cut me off. i want your guests to understand that white people are not responsible for slavery in this country. you have several different

ethnic groups, people of european descent. they might fall under the category of white, that you shouldn't use white as a reason why these people are guilty of slavery. you have the english. accuse italians. you cannot accuse germans. ,ou cannot accuse irish polish so many groups of people who fall under the white category that you cannot accuse. so i think you need to correct in your book which ethnic groups are the people who caused this problem. i really think you need to correct that. host: we have to leave it there. guest: i encourage the caller to read the article. host: what are you working on now? are you still responding? has there been a lot of back and forth, a lot of conversation? isst: i think if there anything healthy that has come

out of this, people have viewed reparations for a long time as a radical idea that th do not to takeerious that is true there have been radicals that advocated for it, in my view correctly. but the basic argument is not particularly radical at all. >> host: ta-nehisi coates, national correspondent "the atlantic" "the case for reparations." think you very much. >> guest: thank you. >> on the next washington journal we discuss the president's options with michael rubin. also, the co-founder of student debt crisis. and a look at nasa budget. washington journal begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span. >> one of the things people don't always recognize is during the war of 1812 it was fought from 1812 until after 1814, early 1815. it was really about america

reestablishing its independence against the british. this was sort of our second american revolution. and this flight is the object for which francis scott key and the words which became our national anthem. >> the image in 1995, of flag is made to local and restored. they're is a whole bottom section that was reconstructed. the flag was moved. there was a deliberate decision by the curators not to do that again. what we wanted was the flag becomes of metaphor for the country. pattern, torn, but still survives and the message is survival of the country and the flag. we're not trying to make it look pretty. we are trying to make it look like it has endured its history and the history can still be celebrated. >> this year marks the 200th anniversary of the british naval

bombardment of fort mchenry. learn more about the flag francis scott key wrote about wildly toward the smithsonian star spangled banner exhibit sunday night at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv this weekend . >> the federal government's program distribute grants for high-speed internet access in schools and libraries. librarians and internet advocates discussed how to improve the program and internet access and libraries. this is two and a half hours. >> good morning. i am the executive director of the district of columbia public library. it is my honor to welcome you to the library this morning to join our distinguished guests with this important public hearing on

the evolving and growing need for public access and america's libraries. libraries have been talking for years about bridging the digital divide, and i think that phrase has been around as long as i have been working in libraries, about 20 years now if not longer. i have to admit that about seven or eight years ago i started getting tired of the phrase the digital divide. my feeling was the issue was increasingly less about bridging the divide and more about the digital skills. in other words, it was less about providing access and more about literacy necessary. i will also a myth that i was wrong. in many ways the digital divide is as big as it has ever been. so much of the world has moved exclusively on line. those of us who have not are really at an increasing risk. seven or eight years ago you could apply for most jobs without being on line. you cannot do that today.

seven or eight years ago you could easily communicate with your child's teacher without being on line. you could apply for health insurance. you could take the high-school equivalency examination without being on line. none of this is possible now without reliable high-speed access, and public libraries remain the very best option to level the playing field. i know that is true because of the incredible success the broadband technology opportunities program as an across the country here and in my previous job, just amazing, amazing things making great strides, not only improving the infrastructure to support public computing but addressing the digital skills divide that i was mentioning as well. many of us are wondering how we build on the incredible success of the program and the additional funding. so i should take a moment on the other end of the digital literacy spectrum to talk to you a bit about the room in which we

are sitting. this is our digital commons, is based that opened up last summer. in addition to providing basic internet access, it provides access to an increasingly sophisticated suite of tools that require even faster connectivity. this room really is the true embodiment of public library. it was not cheap. it cost somewhere around three or $4 million. how can we build more? we know that the need is there. anyway, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you susan hildreth, the director of the institute of museum and library services. she really has done, i think, so much in her tenure to albert -- elevator libraries in the public consciousness, and we all owe her an amazing debt of gratitude we will be sorry to see her go. please. thank you.

[applause] >> i would ask our gentleman if you would not mind joining me on the stage. good morning, everyone. excuse me. well, it is so wonderful to be here. i am okay. i am all right. i have to talk quite a bit and will be drinking in between. it is just water, trust me. first of all, welcome, everyone. this event is being recorded and will be made available to the public. everybody keep that in mind as we have our exciting dialogue here. it is my pleasure to convene the institute of museum and library services hearing on libraries and broadband, and i am doubly excited because we're having this great event during national library week.

[applause] first, i want to thank our host, the d.c. public library. we could not have a better venue for this event. we are connecting connectivity and learning. just take a look. this building just opened up, in this place is packed. this is what it is all about. the issue we are discussing today is of great importance to americans of americans to use broad band as a nation. 17,000 public libraries as well as those who use broadband at home to access resources. every day children, teens, and adults use broadband at local libraries to further their education, find work force and health education, see digital literacy training and much more. today i am proud to be joined by members of the national museum and library services board. they are with me here on the podium.

the board provides policy advice to imls. we are fortunate to have another board member who comes from the museum site of the house. i see some museum faces out there. we love you, too. we are honored to have david with us. .. honored to have the ark ist of the united states and we are excited to have the past president of the library association here today. thank you for being with us. this is the first time we are used our authority to advi vise congress on library issues. this was from the library services act that incorporated into the imls law.

responsibilities that were held by the national commission on library and information science. we chose this moment because it is full ofpotent this is a moment full of potential. we are encouraged that tom wheeler the federal communications commission chairman is working actively to modernize the e-rate and important of tolkien negations discount for libraries and schools and considering the analysis of data that imls just released yesterday this moment is perhaps the writer important than many of us may have realized. our analysis shows that a total of 15,551 individual libraries have used the discounts provided by the e-rate. the sexual number varies from year-to-year however in looking at 11 years worth of data that we had we found that annual participation rate ranged from 67 to 73% of all the libraries

in the u.s. so we are taking advantage of this program. the e-rate was created 17 years ago when the first overhaul of the telecommunications act in 62 years was passed in 1996. this is the same year the museum library services at was first at creating imls and in a move recognizing the importance of technology in the library world change the library and services construction act and some people do miss that but we moved on to the library services and technology act lsta. through lsta, imls supports statewide priorities to help public academic college title and school libraries serve the public especially targeting library services to individuals with geographic cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. we help diverse people. to individuals with disabilities individuals with limited

functional literacy or information skills and from its creation imls has recognized the importance of a connected society and the library's unique role as a hub for our digital world. we are again at a crucial moment for the intersection of emerging technologies and delivering broadband services and the needs of library professionals and library customers need. i would like to note for the record that the national broadband plan issued four years ago recommended affordable access to at least one gig of light -- gigabit to anchor institutions including libraries a very laudable goal gave the fcc through its recent efforts to modernize the e-rate program the president's own connect at initiative and the recent grants for the broadband technology opportunities with a sense of urgency around high-speed internet delivery and the opportunity for innovation that access provides for our

communities. public access technology and content is dependent on high-speed internet delivery. we know one third of all americans 100 million people have not adopted broadband high-speed internet at home. for a variety of reasons and we also know 19 million do not have access at all. this has a dramatic impact on the capacity of public libraries to serve those left out of the benefits of full participation in a digital world. the recent economic recession bears this out. as millions of americans flocked to public libraries to access work worst development in information on economic opportunities are libraries continued their well-established role as community anchors. we know of america's jobseekers headed to their trusted institutions during this challenging time often relying on the library's internet connection to search for work to sharpen their skills. we also know more than 80% of the fortune 500 these today

require on line job applications to realistically succeed in today's society and the internet. there can be no doubt that the speed of internet connectioconnectio ns mattered delivering information our communities need. that's a federal agency with the public service mission imls has a unique vantage point. we are here to better understand how to best serve the public interest. we are not here to support one path forward but instead to provide an opportunity for a public hearing to examine a variety of points of view and we look forward to hearing from our great lineup of panelists representing world tribal and urban perspectives. we will examine the broad public benefits of library broadband analyze data on braun bad -- and ride band use of public data and hear about solutions that will bring high-speed internet access to libraries. so thank you very much and we will now begin with the wonderful welcome by fcc chairman tom wheeler.

he gives me great pleasure to introduce the current fcc chairman thomas wheeler who has graciously taken time to start things off for us this morning. we appreciate that so much. for over three decades german wheeler has been involved with new telecommunications networks and services experiencing the revolution in telecommunications is a policy expert and advocate and businessman. as an entrepreneur he started our help start multiple companies offering cable wireless and video communication services. as i mentioned in my opening remarks chairman wheeler has made it clear he understands the importance and the role of libraries. with its vast and diverse background in telecommunications and emerging technological issues we are very fortunate to have him here with us today. please welcome tom wheeler. [applause] >> thank you very much susan and to the members of the board it's

nice to see you all here. this is something very important and congratulations to the institute of library and museum services for convening and for having this idea to help get this message out. susan and everybody i am privileged to share the podium today with my friend tom power from the white house who has been a leading pusher, advocate for the kinds of changes that we have to be making to make sure that we are bringing the e-rate program into the 21st century. i'm also joined by a couple of my colleagues to our intimately involved in this. jonathan chambers and daniel alvarez. when you look for fingerprints on what the fcc is doing in terms of the e-rate reform

you'll find john and dan's fingerprints all over it. but there are also two other very important people in this audience. i think that their presence here today creates a construct for how we can discuss things. chairman reed hundt. i have the august responsibility of following in reid's footsteps as chairman of the fcc and while there are many names that inevitably get attached to the e-rate program that the present at the creation seminole name associated with that is reed hundt. there would need no e-rate program without reed hundt and that is just a factual statement.

[applause] the archivist of the united states david theriault is also here and susan said, he has got more goodies in his house down on pennsylvania avenue than anyplace else and over the years i have been privileged to hang around a lot of those goodies and hang around david. he is a library guide to begin with folks. he was stolen from the new york public library where he was running that great institution that what he has done at the national archives is to open up the national archives and so much of that concept of opening up means digitization. and i want to give you a personal example of why what reed and david have enabled can

be transformative. i wrote a couple of books on the civil war and the most recent was about abraham lincoln's use of the telegraph. thank goodness at the national archives there sits abraham lincoln's handwritten telegraphs. the spielberg movie was a fabulous movie but they have the telegraph office seem wrong. lincoln did not dictate his telegrams. he wrote them out in longhand and thank god he did and thank god they were saved in the national archives. because it becomes a one degree of separation. when you hold in your white gloved hand the piece of paper

that abraham lincoln wrote on there is one degree of separation that you feel from abraham lincoln. and that is it privilege that a few researchers like i was privileged to have gats. but what david has done is to digitize all of those documents, not only the telegrams but the other great holdings at the national archives so that there is one between someone who wants to explore and abraham lincoln. it used to be when i started my research on lincoln's telegrams i was using the microfilm copies of his telegrams.

susan is going to ocoee and of that. you get this canister and you would sit down at this clunky machine and you would go through each microfilm picture one by one. now thanks to david you can and it's there. so because people like david theriault digitized the products the information and because people like reed hundt made that digitized information available, that is why the work that we are talking about here today in terms of the importance of libraries is so incredibly key to what gets done. as we are sitting in this room here we are moving from stacks of books to on line centers.

the library has always been the on ramp to the world of information and ideas and now that on-ramp is at digital speeds. but you know as you all know and as i am seeing as i travel across the country libraries are playing a more and more and more important role in our communities as was pointed out earlier. it's where americans without computers go to get on line. it's where students after school go to get on line. it's where americans go to apply for their va benefits or apply for their health care or apply for their job.

and it's where librarians and up being the guide at the side as people make these kinds of digital explorations. a as a history buff of course i have always been interested in the role that andrew carnegie played in the library history of america. and one of the things that everybody always thinks andrew carnegie. andrew carnegie was first a net work guy. andrew carnegie started as a telegraph operator for the pennsylvania railroad. and it's a matter of fact it was brought here at the civil war and was responsible for stringing the telegraph line that went out towards manassas.

it didn't make it to manassas before the battle but what abraham lincoln knew about what was going on at the battle of first manassas was the result of andrew carnegie's work. so it's appropriate that we are talking about libraries, about carnegie's contribution in making libraries what they were in the 19th century and we come back to networks. that is why e-rate modernization is so important. the program that we have is called the schools and libraries program. sub i've also started calling it in libraries and schools program so we made sure we recognize and emphasize the important contribution of each of those institutions. so what are we doing? we are moving from