California Library Connect (CLC), formerly known as the High-Speed Broadband in California Libraries Program, is an initiative of the California State Library to help California’s residents access library resources and connect to reliable broadband within their communities. Since 2014, the program has helped more than 950 of California’s approximately 1,130 public libraries connect to high-speed broadband services.

CLC enables libraries and other institutions to access the California Research and Education Network (CalREN)—a high-capacity, 8,000-mile fiber-optic network designed to meet the unique requirements of more than 20 million users, including the majority of K-20 students as well as educators, researchers, and others working in California’s vital public-serving institutions. CalREN, which is operated by the non-profit Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), advances education and research statewide by providing a world-class network essential for innovation, collaboration, and economic growth.

CLC’s key partners are the California State Library, CENIC, and CTC Technology & Energy.

The administrator of CLC is the Imperial County Office of Education (ICOE).

The Imperial County Office of Education (ICOE) is the LEA for Imperial County located in Southern California, east of San Diego, in the Imperial Valley.

For over 20 years, the Imperial County Office of Education has been implementing innovative solutions to connect schools, libraries, and other public agencies, receiving both state and national recognition for its efforts. The county office’s current role as program manager for K-12 high-speed connectivity provides them with unique knowledge and experience that will improve the administration of the comparable program for California libraries.

ICOE has assumed CTC’s contractual responsibilities, and you may already be working with ICOE. The transition team is aware that some library jurisdictions may require more time than others to execute a new contract with ICOE and we continue to work with all libraries to ensure a smooth transition.

The switch to ICOE does not affect your E-rate.  All existing services with CENIC will continue per your agreements.

The Y7 broadband grant concludes at the end of June 2022. Grant applications for Y7 should be submitted to Califa prior to June 1^st in order to permit administrators time to review and process applications.

A new iteration of this broadband grant program will commence in mid-May 2022 and be managed by CTC Technology & Energy.  You can access the Y8 grant portal via this link: https://webportalapp.com/sp/home/california_library_connect

There will be no interruption to any library’s broadband connectivity due to the transition from from CTO to ICOE, nor will there be any change in fees or pricing due to this change.

All public libraries in the State of California are eligible.

The California State Library is funded by the California State Legislature to set the direction for this project and provide oversight. The State Library engages a third-party administrator (currently CTC Technology & Energy) to oversee the program on behalf of the State Library. The California State Library serves as the central reference and research library for the state government; preserves and disseminates information; and provides technical assistance and development opportunities to California’s public libraries.

CENIC provides network design, procures circuits, arranges for state and federal discounts, purchases and installs hardware, and maintains and monitors network connectivity to each library. CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, designs, implements, and operates CalREN, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of its members which include higher education institutions and K-12 public schools in the State.

ICOE supports the California State Library with the facilitation of the California Library Connect program.

Public libraries in California are members of CENIC (the organization that builds and maintains the CalREN network), and your library patrons and staff will have access to the CalREN network.

CENIC is not a vendor. Rather CENIC operates a private network (CalREN) designed to meet the needs of the education and library community. CENIC seeks input from its members on all aspects of its operations, including operation of the CalREN network.

Per the FCC’s rules, E-rate discounts apply to services starting July 1^st of each year. The first group of libraries enrolled in the project at the end of 2014. They were connected between July 2015 and June 2016. A second group of libraries enrolled in July of 2015. These libraries were connected between July 2016 and June 2017. A third group of libraries began enrollment in July 2016. These libraries were connected between July 2017 and June 2018. Libraries may connect prior to the July date if the library is able to cover the full undiscounted costs of connecting, both the non-recurring and monthly recurring costs. Information regarding the yearly RFP cycle which libraries need to participate in in order to be connected is available on the CLC website.

There are a myriad of benefits to a library that joins CLC. CENIC helps public institutions achieve their goals by providing advanced networking and consulting services and delivers the highest quality technologies at the lowest cost. The CalREN network was built to provide solutions tailored to the needs of public research and education institutions across California, and now, libraries. As a non-profit network owned and governed by its members in the education, library, and research communities, the members have a direct role in shaping CENIC services, products, and strategic direction, to create a high level of value, transparency, and engagement.

CENIC provides the most advanced technologies at the lowest cost by passing along the pricing advantages of its large economies of scale and ownership of its backbone network infrastructure. With a presence in all 58 counties, there is no other network like it in California. By keeping network-related costs low and predictable, CENIC helps organizations meet challenging budget restrictions, reduce program expenses, and do more for their communities. CENIC does not limit members to a one-size-fits-all solution. A tiered network approach and tailored solutions meet a diverse range of needs. Members are always able to choose the right level of services for them with cost-efficient scalability as their needs evolve.

By connecting to CalREN, a unified statewide library network can be developed and will allow applications to interoperate in ways that would be difficult if libraries were connected to disparate network providers. These applications might include shared licensing (for both content and business applications), broad-based content sharing, cloud computing applications, and system or multi-system library cards. Additionally, CENIC is managing a statewide E-rate consortium process and accessing the California Teleconnect Fund program for the broadband services provided through this project.

The transition means every library need to contract with ICOE for this program. The new contract will follow the same renewal timeline you were on with your old contract, as it is linked to the CENIC statement of work.

The California State Library uses third party administrator to manage the application and disbursement process for the California Library Connect program. The contract with CTC expired, and a new contract was awarded to ICOE  Thus, existing participants must sign a new agreement with ICOE to continue participating in the program.

As soon as possible (before March 31, 2024). ICOE needs a contract in place to receive payment from and remit subsidy payments to the libraries. If your contract would have to have an effective date after July 1, the addendum document will be needed to allow ICOE duties on your current contract until the new one can be put into effect.

The addendum is only necessary if your jurisdiction’s contract approval process is so long that you cannot have an effective date on or before July 1. The addendum would need to go into effect as soon as possible to allow ICOE to take over CTC’s duties on your current contract until the new contract can be put into effect.

As long as it’s in line with your jurisdiction’s approval process, sending a scanned signed document back to us at admin@californialibraryconnect.org is allowable. We will send the fully executed document back to you using the same method. If your jurisdiction requires a different process, please follow that.

If you are already connected to CENIC under a contract with CTC, your circuits are NOT being cancelled and reordered as a result of this transition.

This term applies to any non-CENIC connections you may currently have if you are newly joining the program. The change of administrator from CTC to ICOE will not involve any changes to the actual services you are receiving via CENIC, aside from pre-planned upgrades or new circuits.  In other words, existing CENIC services will continue according to their existing terms and no early terminations would result.

The only instance an early termination fee would come into play during the regular course of business would be if a library decided to join the consortium and connect via CENIC while still having time left on an existing contract with another provider; or if the library decided to cancel a circuit obtained through CENIC before its contract term was up.  In those cases, the library would be responsible for any early termination fees, just as they would currently.

Contract end dates are determined by and listed on the Statement of Work from CENIC which is attached to the contract. If the Statement of Work was provided before 2020, you may need to check with CENIC, or it may be in the contract with CTC..

If there is something wrong with the bill and the library alerts the ICOE team, ICOE will immediately follow up with CENIC to get to a resolution. Alerting the CLC team as soon as possible to an issue with your invoice is essential to ensuring that you will not incur late fees.

The current target for a library connection is one Gigabit per second (or 1 Gbps). In some cases, this connection is to be shared among library branches. Greater speeds of 10 Gbps are also possible and a number of library jurisdictions with multiple branches have chosen this level of connectivity. Lower connection speeds are also available, although mostly utilized in remote areas where there is simply no other option. All bids for your locations will be analyzed by CENIC, who will present the best option(s) to you during the RFP process.

Libraries that are connected are more efficient, which creates a better user experience for patrons. With better bandwidth overall, there are less complaints from patrons. Systems within the library that rely on connectivity also run more efficiently with better bandwidth.

One example of the program impacting other libraries’ connectivity speeds is the Alhambra Public Library, which is going from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps (a 10-fold increase). A Santa Clara County Library has nine branch libraries currently connecting at 20 Mbps each and sharing a single 100 Mbps link to the internet with other county administrative uses. When connected to CalREN, these libraries will each get a 1 Gbps connection to the main library—and the main library will get a 10 Gbps connection to the CalREN backbone. Internet connectivity will no longer be shared with other administrative offices in the county.

In all cases, CENIC circuits have the same bandwidth in both directions (i.e., a “symmetrical connection”). So, in the case of a 1 Gbps connection, the upload connection is 1 Gbps from the library to CalREN, and the download connection is 1 Gbps from CalREN to the library.

The costs provided in quotes, except where it has been explicitly stated that there are additional costs to be determined, represent the total cost to the library for new circuits before any applicable taxes and surcharges. The quotes represent circuit costs and installation costs, including any special construction costs if required. A library may need to upgrade its owned hardware to connect to CalREN.

One-time costs are typically to pay for the cost of installation of service. These are costs carriers pass on to CENIC and ICOE on behalf of the California State Library. These are typically referred to as “non-recurring costs” or NRCs.

Recurring costs are billed to libraries by ICOE quarterly and cover the expense of carriers keeping the circuit working, including monitoring for problems and making repairs when something is damaged.

To take advantage of higher-speed connections to the Internet, a library may need new hardware. A new router and a new firewall are commonly needed because it takes more advanced hardware to deal with a 1 Gbps data stream (connection speed) than a 100 Mbps data stream. (Sometimes the router and firewall functionality are combined into one piece of hardware.) A library may also want to upgrade the network in its building to allow patrons and staff to benefit fully from their new connectivity.

The California State Library offers a grant through the California Library Connect program to help pay for the one-time connectivity costs including hardware (such as routers and/or switches), site improvements, and technical consultants. More information on the current programs offered can be found at the following sites.

• https://www.library.ca.gov/services/to-libraries/broadband/

The service provider (e.g., AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) will bring its service to the library’s minimum point of entry (MPOE) and no further. An MPOE is the point at which a telecommunication provider’s wiring either crosses or enters a building. This is the point at which the carrier’s responsibility ends and the customer’s responsibility begins.

In some cases, the provider can be paid to move the MPOE, but it is likely to be less expensive to run cabling from the MPOE to wherever the library needs the service. The MPOE move or cabling cost would be the responsibility of the library.

Also, if additional electrical power is required in the MPOE in order to house the hardware there, then this cost will need to be paid for by the library. However, both of these costs are eligible for grant funding through the California Library Connect Program.

Per E-rate guidelines, the price must be the most heavily weighted factor in a review of bids and the most cost-effective bid must be chosen. Keep in mind that the most cost-effective bid may not be the bid that offered the lowest cost; but should be the bid that garners you the services you sought for the best price given your specific requirements. In other words, the lowest cost isn’t always the same as best value. As such, CENIC also looks at other important factors, such as the ability to upgrade to higher bandwidth without incurring termination penalties, ability to relocate services without incurring penalties or modifying the original contract terms, response time and credits for outages, etc. CENIC may provide two or three of the best options for library staff to choose between, if multiple bids are received which score highly.  CENIC facilitates all connections to the CalREN network and is happy to advise decisions between options when they exist.

The bid documents are confidential, so CENIC cannot share them broadly. However, they can, upon request, send you a list of the pricing received specific to your library.