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Attachment B- Connecting Community Partners — Ramsey County Library System <br />� The Ramsey County Library System is comprised of seven branch libraries located in suburban Ramsey <br />� County; Roseville, Arden Hills, Mounds View, Shoreview, North St. Paul, Maplewood, and White Sear <br />� Lake. <br />� Currently the branch library in Shoreview serves as the primary data distribution point for the <br />� Library system. Each of the other branch libraries connect back to the Shoreview Central <br />� Library to access internal database servers and to provide patron access to the Internet. <br />� With the increased demand and use oflnternet access terminals at the branch libraries, <br />� providing suff cient bandwidth to these locations became increasingly diff cult to sustain and <br />� afford Leased data circuits (TI data lines) that were suff cient 5 years ago could no longer <br />� provide the necessary bandwidth to support library operations. <br />� In 2005, City staff inet with representatives from the Library to explore technology partnering <br />� opportunities. Identified was the need to improve connectivity between the branch libraries and to <br />� increase Internet bandwidth for library patrons. A relationship was forged to find a solution. <br />� The first phase of the project was to utilize the existing Institutional Network (INET) to provide <br />� county-wide connectivity between the branch libraries. This required building a network connection <br />� between the local library building and the adjacent City Hall. <br />� Shoreview <br />� In a joint project with the City of Shoreview, a fiber optic connection was constructed between the <br />� Shoreview Library and Shoreview City Hall. This provided the Central Library access to the INET. <br />� With this new connection, the Library was now able to access a shared Internet connection at Roseville <br />� City Hall. This connection increased the Library's connection speed from 3Mb/s to 10 Mb/s, and <br />� reduced the City's operating expense for Internet access. <br />� North St. Paul <br />� In North St. Paul, the Library participated in a remodel of the North St. Paul Community Center to add <br />� a branch library within the building. This cooperative effort provided access to the INET through the <br />� City's existing connection, paving the way for the first high-speed connection between a branch library <br />� and the Central Library. <br />� The partnership continues to create additional cost sharing opportunities and benefits to the community. <br />� The Library provides three managed Internet terminals at the Community Center, providing patron <br />� Internet access even when the Library is closed. <br />� Maplewood <br />� With the opening of the new Maplewood Library in 2007, the number of Internet terminals increased <br />� considerably, putting more pressure on the Library system for bandwidth between the branch library <br />� and Shoreview. The City of North St. Paul constructed a fiber optic connection between the North St. <br />� Paul branch location and the new Maplewood Library. The Library leases the connection from the City. <br />� This provides an ultra-high speed connection between these two libraries and aggregates access back to <br />� the Central Library. <br />� Mounds View <br />� Following on the success of the projects with the other cities, in 2007 Mounds View constructed fiber <br />between their City Hall and the Mounds View branch library. Like with Maplewood, the Library leases <br />Page 7 of 9 <br />