Presentation on interrogating values embedding in technology and how a library WiFi hotspot loan program is an example technology that empowers users and promotes agency. Presented at the 2018 Higher Education Diversity Summit in Denver, CO.

1. Shea Swauger
Researcher Support Services Head
Auraria Library
Pretty Fly for a WiFi

2. Alternative title:
Why technical infrastructure is a
manifestation of social and institutional
values obfuscated by the lie of
neutrality and what to do about it.

3. Working assumptions
• Technology isn’t neutral
• Technology replicates and
reinforces existing power structures
• The ‘Digital Divide’ isn’t an
accident, it was designed

4. Auraria Campus

5. Some of our students are experiencing one or more
of the following:
• Housing insecurity
• Homelessness
• Food insecurity
• Poverty
Many of our students
• Work full or part time jobs
• Have children
• Are First Generation college students
• English as a Second Language
Almost all our students live off campus

6. Auraria Library

7. Libraries & WiFi Hotspots

8. WiFi Hotspot Loan Program
• Library pays all monthly service
fees
• Manages
• Purchasing/replacements
• Circulation
• Cataloging
• Vendor communication

9. WiFi Hotspot Loan Program
• Check out time: 2 weeks
• Take them anywhere in the US
• Private
• Free

10. Technology should be to further a
person’s agency, but we forget this
because we’re so used to being
commodified.

11. Critical Technology Scholars
Safiya Umoja Noble Anna Lauren HoffmannAudrey Watters

12. So what do we do now?

13. Examine the technology we
currently invest in and ask:
Who is this this built for?
Who benefits from it?
Who is excluded/commodified by it?

14. When presented with a new
technology, ask:
Who is this this built for?
Who benefits from it?
Who is excluded/commodified by it?

16. Support Libraries

17. Contact
Shea Swauger
Researcher Support Services Head
Shea.swauger@ucdenver.edu
303-315-7717