Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, recently addressed the 2021 Florida Legislature, citing the Latin phrase “semper paratus” or “always ready” as a principle that should guide Florida’s response to emergency management.
This is a guiding principle for the day-to-day actions in all of Florida’s libraries and underscores the value that libraries deliver daily. However, in this time of COVID-19, Florida libraries have continued to meet the needs of their communities in a variety of ways and are critical elements of communities as they recover the impact of this pandemic.
Specifically, libraries have continued to be reliable providers of internet access, According to the Pew Research organization, over half of Americans (87%) surveyed said that internet access has been essential or important as communities faced lock downs, parents worked from home and children began virtual home school.