Keywords
Citation
(1999), "Bill Gates still giving", The Bottom Line, Vol. 12 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.1999.17012bab.007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
Bill Gates still giving
Bill Gates still giving
Keywords: Public Libraries, Funding, USA
Microsoft chair Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, who live in a suburb of Seattle, are giving $20 million to the Seattle Public Library (SPL). This is the largest single gift ever made to a public library. This particular gift was not from the Gates Learning Foundation (formerly Gates Library Foundation), which had already allocated $400 million to connect most of the nation's libraries to the Net by the year 2002. SPL will use the gift to support their "Libraries for All" capital plan. About $15 million will be used to expand and improve branch libraries, $4 million for enhanced collection development for the system, and $1 million for literacy, ESL, and other programs. The total cost of Libraries for All is $238 million, and 72 percent of the voters have already approved a $196.4 million bond measure.
When renaming the Gates Library Foundation the Gates Learning Foundation, Bill Gates and his wife gave an additional $1.115 billion to the foundation. The foundation insists that its mission to connect the nation's neediest libraries will continue, but they also plan to look at new areas to support. The Gates Learning Foundation's president hinted that the organization is interested in looking beyond North America and looking at other potential partners. So far the foundation has provided approximately $250 million to 1,300 libraries for technology upgrades.