“Digital Navigators” Trained To Take On The World

With his 65th birthday just a few months away, Jerrold Rubak was ready to sign up for Medicare — but wasn’t prepared to navigate the online application process.

Now, Rubak and more than 200 others from Hamden, New Haven and North Haven are accessing health insurance, exploring the internet, using software programs like Excel, and crossing the digital divide with the help of new library-based ​“digital navigation” teachers offering free, individualized support to tech-wary people.

Library staffers celebrated the completion of that state-funded digital navigation pilot Saturday alongside a host of ​“graduates” who have been practicing utilizing digital devices since the program launched in January. They testified to the impact the project has had on their lives — and pleaded for town money to pick up where federal funding has since dropped off.

“The program should be a permanent thing,” asserted Rubak, who has lived in Hamden for 50 years. The digital navigation program has turned out to be the most useful and directly-impactful town service he has experienced, he said. 

When trying to get on Medicare, he said, ​“I called social security up” for help. ​“They said, ​‘Do you have a friend’? I say, ​‘Yeah,’ but they don’t want to do it in my house. And I can’t go over their houses because of the Covid thing.”

With the help of a library assistant, he was finally able to file his application. ​“It’s great. I live alone. This program means a lot,” he said.

Susan Haller agreed. Haller, who is 69, runs an antiques shop called Lazy Susan. She scheduled classes with the navigators to get better at Excel, the spreadsheet software she uses to track her inventory. After a few sessions, Haller said, she had successfully picked up several Excel shortcuts and keyboard commands — and, in turn, shaved the amount of screen time required to keep business booming.

“With the help of the library and the navigators, I feel like where I’m supposed to be as a citizen that I can participate,” she reflected.

“Each of the teachers I’ve met has been very kind, very patient. They work on any level with someone who has no experience or, like me, is better experienced but still not as polished as I’d like to be. They will answer any question and show us very specific techniques that you may need, whether it’s from turning on the computer or learning how to Zoom.”

Others who spoke at the event included a World War II veteran who learned to use a laptop to communicate with his great-granddaughter and a woman who managed to land a job as a social worker after working with a tech tutor to revise and edit her resume and cover letter.

The digital navigation program consists of three individuals — Robert Gagne, Dave Scanlon and Matt McGregor — who have been working with Hamden Library Director Melissa Canham-Clyne for the last half year to help anyone in need of digital literacy education or access to affordable and effective technology to master skills that can be key to surviving the 21st century.

Hamden’s Miller Memorial Library runs that program, but the digital navigators meet with clients across all library branches plus public places such as Burger King or Ali Babas as well as community centers to meet people where they are, according to Canham-Clyne.

Those three ​“digital navigators” have been paid over the past months through a $100,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences. That funding expires on Sept. 30. 

Canham-Clyne has submitted a proposal to continue the program for another year using a portion of Hamden’s federal pandemic-relief American Rescue Plan dollars. The town’s Legislative Council heard that pitch Monday night in a presentation by Canham-Clyne and Chief of Staff Sean Grace. The council will take an official vote on how to distribute ARPA dollars following an Oct. 12 public input session. 

Canham-Clyne reported at the graduation that at least 230 individuals have booked 715 appointments with digital navigation assistants since January. They’ve learned how to independently complete online tasks like scheduling appointments with the Department of Motor Vehicles, updating their resumes and searching for jobs, and accessing financial assistance and benefits.

Canham-Clyne said the pandemic, which pushed life further online than ever before, prompted her to try out the idea.

“The pandemic has taught the nation that broadband, that the internet is part of life,” she said, adding that she hopes to ensure that the library maintains the resources necessary to teach and empower people how to take their lives online.