Addressing the digital divide: Dallas Public Library adds ‘thousands of devices’ to its library branches
For some West Dallas families, hotspots loaned from the Dallas Public Library are their primary connection to the internet. Carlos Flores, manager of the Dallas West Branch Library, says neighbors often hold on to the hotspots, checking them out over and over again. Many of them are children who don’t have wired internet at home, he says.
“I have parents coming in and apologizing,” Flores says. “They’re like, ‘We just needed it. There was no other option,’ because they didn’t have internet access.”
More than two years after the Dallas Public Library added laptops and hotspots to its circulation catalog, they’re still in high demand. Nearly 200 people sit on a waitlist for one of the library’s laptop or Chromebook bundles that come with a hotspot for wireless internet connection. For people wanting just a hotspot, however, the library has hundreds available.
The DPL Technology at Home program launched in February 2020 — coincidentally, a month before the pandemic began — to be a bridge in the digital divide for neighborhoods lacking reliable and accessible internet. The library designated both the Dallas West branch in West Dallas and the Martin Luther King branch in South Dallas as distribution locations.
Earlier this year, the library’s catalog showed zero hotspots available with more than a thousand in circulation. There was a lot of “wear-and-tear,” on the original 3,000 hotspots acquired in February and September 2020, says Sallie Lockhart, manager of library information technology for the Dallas Public Library system.
But recently, the library obtained new hotspots and bundles to replace overused, damaged or lost devices initially acquired two years ago.
“The system has already changed for customers to be able to place holds on these new items,” Lockhart says. “There is almost no wait time for the new hotspots. Just simply because we are going to have so many [to] go out at once.”
She says 2,400 hotspots have been injected into the system:
- There are 1,500 individual hotspots available.
- Another 800 hotspots are for Dell laptop bundles.
- Another 80 hotspots are for Chromebook bundles.
- There are 20 hotspots reserved for backstock or replacement needs.
Though the library catalog shows only 19 Dell laptop bundles and 35 Chromebook bundles currently available, Lockhart says the new bundles will be added to the system over the next several weeks to months.

The Dallas West Branch Library stands behind its sign on Monday, August 29, 2022.