Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke today announced the award of two grants totaling $2,264,232 to Tincan under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Tincan’s funding will enhance connectivity to the Spokane Public Library’s public access computers, establish or upgrade public computer centers at four city community centers, establish a training facility for Tincan programs, and increase public access computing through 7 non-profit partners.

The project stands on a strong foundation of existing partnerships. “We did not come together solely for this proposal” said Karen Michaelson, Tincan’s Executive Director, “we have been working with many of these organizations for over 15 years.”

Tincan’s partners in this project include the City of Spokane, Spokane Public Library, Northeast Community Center, East Central Community Center, West Central Community Center, Peaceful Valley Community Center, the YWCA, YMCA, Volunteers of America, Contract-Based Education, Crosswalk, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, SNAP’s business programs, and Internet Expressway (a local Internet provider).

Linda Schatz of EdTech Strategies, LLC conducted an webinar through ALA this morning, Wednesday August 5, 2009. This webinar contains tips and advice on completing the application process for BTOP Public Computing Center and Sustainable Adoption Applications. The webinar presents practical advice including:

• when to register;
• what information do you need in advance of filling out the application online;
• reminders to use the Broadband USA site at http://broadbandusa.sc.egov.usda.gov/apply.htm for registering and applying and not to use Grants.gov for either registration or applying;
• tips on how to fill out the application correctly;
• the relationship between E-Rate and BTOP funding;
• many other tips and much other advice.

The presentation is posted on ALA’s Know Your Stimulus Site under the Broadband Resources link. On the Broadband Resources page look for the Guidelines and Strategies heading. Here you will find “Linda Schatz’s Nuts and Bolts Webinar Slide Deck (ppt, pdf)”. Both PowerPoint and Adobe Reader (pdf) versions are available.

The ALA Washington Office today released a document to guide members of the library community who have a serious interest in applying to the Public Computer Center (PCC) funding category of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).

The paper, Public Computer Center Funding Category and Library Proposals, includes text about the PCC funding category from several National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) documents, provides library-specific examples to stimulate the thinking process for applicants from the library community, and reviews the overall BTOP objectives.