Libraries and Web good team

Those who use the Internet might wonder how they ever did without it. Life without Google? A scary thought.

And those who need access but don't have it at home might wonder what they would do without the local library.

A recent U.S. Census Bureau report that 40 percent of households in South Carolina lack Internet access reveals a major shortcoming. Indeed, the Internet is a key tool for many people doing many things, from job-hunting to recipe-hunting and from banking to virtual baseball.

But until access becomes wider — and until most people are willing and able to pay for computers — libraries offer welcome availability to the Internet.

According to our report, Charleston County Public Library computers, with free online access, are almost always in use. It's another reason to ensure adequate funding for libraries.

Government belt-tightening is unavoidable at this point. But libraries shouldn't be considered frills in a place where some high-schoolers read on a fourth-grade level and where the state's unemployment rate is among the highest in the country.

It's worth aiming towards a day when anyone in the state could Google "the South Carolina Lowcountry" and find its students at the top of the charts and its unemployment at the bottom.