We subscribe to a plethora of full-text resources, citation databases, electronic journals, etc. We depend on inbound Internet access to allow our users to reach our online catalogs and electronic resources from their homes and offices. Libraries today spend a significant portion of their annual budgets on subscriptions to Internet-based content. With such a big investment, it's strategically important for institutions to provide sufficient bandwidth for these services. It would be great if libraries could calculate their anticipated bandwidth requirements, factor in anticipated growth, and simply increase the speed of the connection from their Internet service providers accordingly.
Librarians generally like the idea of planning ahead to meet anticipated demand.
Unfortunately, life on the Internet is not that simple. Most libraries don't have their own private connections to the Internet-they usually share the one that's provided by their parent organizations. Shared bandwidth is a reality that we deal with, but one that makes it impossible to guarantee adequate service for all parties. Until recently, even within these shared environments, anticipating the amount of Internet capacity or at least reacting to current usage levels was a fairly manageable process. Although we've never been able to supply bandwidth ahead of demand for too long a period, recent events have had a major impact on our Internet access.