Putting the library on the hot spot

By Gretchen Garrity

At their Feb. 24, 2026 meeting the Christian County Library Board of Trustees voted down a motion to limit mobile hot spots to one for each library branch. Treasurer John Garrity* began looking into mobile hot spots at the library when he saw the annual cost for them, anywhere from over $20,000 annually to the current cost of around $18,000.  

There are 45 mobile hotspot devices, according to the library's Feb. 21, 2026 Verizon billing record. Six are not being assessed charges for whatever reason and seven have charges although there is zero data usage. One hotspot is designated as a staff device.

The Board packet (which you can access HERE) beginning on page 25, details information the treasurer shared with other board members four weeks before the meeting, as well as library staff’s executive summary beginning on page 29.

Public comments included arguments both for and against the mobile hotspots. The video below should be prompted to just after the 9-minute mark. After the speakers are finished, there is discussion surrounding the mobile hot spots. Please note the speaker in favor of the hotspots owns her own home, owns at least two smartphones between family members, runs a business out of her home and widely travels the state.

According to the library staff's summary there were 329 total checkouts of mobile hot spots last year (334 if you go by the 2025 annual report). Hot spots are checked out at four-week intervals. If you divide the 329 checkouts by 12 that comes out to about 27.4 checkouts per month. The library's online checkout shows 34 devices available for checkout. Taking into consideration the nearly $20,000 it takes to maintain and pay for the hotspots, that means each hotspot is costing the library about $480 per year. 

In a county of 96,000 citizens the library's mobile hot spots are serving a mere .348% of the population, some of whom may be library staff. Less than half of one percent of Christian County citizens are receiving free internet at a cost of almost $20,000 annually for taxpayers. If you figure that, like the speaker, some mobile hotspots are being rotated in one household through two or more library cardholders, that means the number of individual households served is even less. 

As mentioned earlier, there are currently seven devices the library owns that are using zero data. They may be broken, stolen, lost, or misplaced, yet the library continues to pay monthly fees for them. This was noted in the Feb. 24 meeting.  I believe the staff is researching this issue.

And, according to an employee assignment record I obtained through a sunshine request, there were three hotspots checked out to employees for remote work in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid time. From the record it appears they have not been checked back in, though the employee record may not have been updated. The equipment descriptions do not fit the monthly invoice designations, making it impossible to determine if these hotspots are currently in use. The latest February Verizon bill notes a $40.01 hotspot charge for "Christian Co Staff 3" with usage of .506GB. Usage for that staff hotspot in the months of January and December include 1.302GB and 1.501GB respectively.

I also made a sunshine request to the Library, asking how many unique users requested the mobile hotspots for a several-month time frame. The Library responded by saying they would have to create a new record to give me that information, and therefore the request was denied on legal grounds.** Board Vice President Kelli Roberts also asked that question of Executive Director Will Blydenburgh at the Feb. 24 meeting. It was not the first time that question has been asked. The extremely limited reach of these mobile hotspots is a major equity and accessibility issue, as other libraries have noted.

The Grand Rapids, Michigan Public Library system, with an annual budget of $15.5 million is phasing out their mobile hot spots. They will be allocating the funds elsewhere. According to the article, "'Despite the large financial investment, the reach of the collection is very limited,' Library Director of Marketing and Communications Katie Zychowski wrote in an email to News 8."

The Grand Rapids library also noted how many unique checkouts they had in 2025. "During fiscal year 2025, the hot spots were checked out 869 times to 490 people. GRPL calculated an average yearly cost of about $183 per user." The Michigan library openly shared the number of unique users. They clearly saw the financial implication and equity issues.

Rotating checkouts in one household is a problem in libraries, as you can see in the following conversation on Reddit titled “Hotspots are our nightmare”:

The conversation on Reddit roams widely on the problems of providing free mobile hotspots to patrons. What was not thoroughly discussed in the meeting was the use of filters on the mobile hotspots. Note the following from the Reddit conversation:

The CCL does not have filters on the mobile hotspots, which means the library has no control over the usage of their electronic devices once checked out. The mobile hotspots were only recently moved to the Library of Things and limited to adult checkout. Depending on which organization is tracking internet usage, from 10-30% of all internet usage can be attributed to viewing porn. Additionally, these unfiltered hotspots could be used for any number of criminal activities.

Let's next address the apparent need that mobile hotspots serve in rural areas and for low-income citizens. The  staff-compiled summary listed several reasons that hotspots should be continued.

They noted the rural nature of parts of Christian County, with broadband service being limited (though it is being rapidly expanded). It is useful to note that cell phone towers are also being quickly erected, and that most areas of our county have 100% or close to coverage of either fixed or mobile broadband. As indicated in the treasurer's report, the need for pandemic-era mobile hotspots for rural areas has passed for the following reasons:

• Pandemic policies are no longer in effect
• All four library branches are open and provide free wi-fi
  
• Almost universal smartphone market penetration (91% of adult ownership nationwide)
• Virtually 100% of smartphones include hotspot hardware as a native feature
• Free wi-fi in Christian County is widely available at restaurants and retail shops, and is more reliable than mobile hotspots. If your phone's wi-fi goes down, so does the mobile hotspots.
  
• 5G is widely available in the county's major hubs, and is improving in rural areas through state-funded grants. Several 5G radio towers are slated for completion in early 2026 to eliminate any remaining dead zones.
• There are several government and low-income internet assistance programs for the truly needy, and many of the major providers also offer programs to assist customers with different options.

To summarize some of the issues:

• Major equity and accessibility issues for taxpaying Christian County residents. Mobile hotspots serve less than one half a percent of citizens in Christian County.   
• If the library attempted to provide mobile hotspots strictly for residents below the poverty line,  only 4% (about 8,000 in poverty in CC) of the truly needy would have access to the library's mobile hotspots if all of the checkouts are those in poverty and are the same number served in 2025. 
• Residents in under-served areas are fast approaching full coverage for internet service through expanded broadband programs, new cell towers, as well as satellite internet.
  
• The number of actual served citizens is less if one takes into account the common situation that some households check out hotspots on a rotating basis, thus cutting equal access even further.
• The annual cost to maintain mobile hotspots is nearly $20,000, which breaks down to about $480 per device per year.
• None of the mobile hotspots at the CCL include internet filtering.
  
• Seven of the devices are costing the library monthly charges, but are seemingly unaccounted for and showing no data usage.
  
• Additionally, from the employee assignment sheet, it looks as if three mobile hotspots were checked out to the Christian County Healthy Department on Dec. 17 (there is no year noted), but have not been marked as returned.
  

The question really comes down to the library's financial focus and overall mission. 

• Should a library's focus include providing free internet service in homes?
• Is it financially feasible? 
• Can taxpayer funds be better utilized elsewhere in the library? 
• Are all library patrons being served equitably?

Since public libraries such as the St. Louis and Grand Rapids libraries are phasing out the Covid-era mobile hotspots, this issue should be revisited at the Christian County Library. Providing free internet to an extremely limited number of citizens may not be the best use of library funds, especially when there is a diminishing need. 

 The library board has financial and ethical responsibilities on behalf of all citizens of Christian County who are served by the library district. The library cannot be "all things to all people," but it can provide excellent library services that reach as many people as possible with the taxpayer funding provided to it.

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*I am married to John Garrity.

**It is questionable whether the library can refuse to provide extracted information from an existing record. 

According to AI (GROK):

"[U]nder Missouri's Sunshine Law (Chapter 610, RSMo), requesting certain data extracted or pulled from existing records is generally not considered "generating a new record" that the public governmental body is required to create from scratch. The law requires agencies to provide access to existing public records but does not obligate them to create entirely new records that do not already exist.Key points from the law, court decisions, and related guidance:

• The Sunshine Law mandates that public governmental bodies provide access to and copies of existing public records (as defined in § 610.010(6), RSMo, which includes records retained by or for the body, whether written or electronic).
• Public bodies are not required to create new records in response to a request. This principle is clearly stated in Missouri case law, such as Jones v. Jackson County Circuit Court (162 S.W.3d 53, Mo. App. W.D. 2005), where the court held that the law "does not require a government body to create a new record upon request, but only to provide access to existing records held or maintained by the public governmental body."
• Similar guidance appears in summaries from the Missouri Attorney General's Office and other official resources, emphasizing that agencies must grant access to what they already have but are not compelled to compile or generate new documents solely for the requester.
  However, there are practical nuances, especially with modern electronic records:

  • If the requested data can be easily extracted or generated from an existing database or computer system (e.g., running a simple query or report that pulls information already stored), some interpretations argue it may qualify as an "existing record" rather than creating something new. For example, legal analysis from sources like Spencer Fane (discussing governmental hospitals) notes that if a spreadsheet or output "could easily [be] generated from existing records in the database," there is "at least an argument" that it counts as an existing record, particularly if producing redacted originals would be more burdensome.
  • In such cases, agencies often produce the extracted data as the most straightforward way to comply, especially when it's low-effort and promotes transparency (the law is to be liberally construed in favor of openness per § 610.011).
    • If the request requires substantial new compilation, analysis, summarization, or creation of a novel document (e.g., a custom report requiring significant manual effort or new calculations), agencies can generally decline to create it and instead offer access to the underlying raw records.

    Agencies can charge reasonable fees for research time, search, and duplication (§ 610.026), which may cover the effort to pull data from databases.For the most accurate application to a specific request, review the exact wording of your request and consider consulting the agency's custodian of records, or—if denied—the Missouri Attorney General's Office (which handles Sunshine Law complaints). The full text of Chapter 610 is available on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes website for reference."