New York Public Library President and CEO Anthony W. Marx writes: “We have long known that the digital divide is a key issue, and that millions of our neighbors do not have home connectivity. In 2020, the chasm came into very sharp focus. What was inequality of access became tragic exclusion from almost all educational, economic, and civic life. At the height of the pandemic, the city’s public libraries, closed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, still recorded over 1,000 Wi-Fi sessions a day. Our fellow citizens of the greatest city in the world had no other choice but to brave a pandemic to stand outside to get the internet bleeding from our branches. Now they will do so in the cold of winter.”