Washington University, St. Louis, MO, reports it has received one of the largest grants in the school’s history to digitize pre-Civil War lawsuits from slaves that sued slave-holders in the Saint Louis Circuit Court.

The grant will require 30 staff members from the library and two years to complete.  The university formally calls the project St. Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project.  The project will scan some 20,000 pages from various city sources such as city directories and court documents.

Missouri Govenor Jay Nixon has submitted an application for a five-year program referred to as Missouri Broadband Now.  The goal of the project is to create jobs while bringing broadband to the remote areas of the state.The project will help lay over 2,500 miles of fiber-optic cable and construct 200 new broadband towers.  The state will provide $25.2 million in matching funds if the application is approved for funding.  This program is most likely to proceed as President Obama has made this a goal as part of his presidency.

Governor Nixon stated this project will lead to a “healthier, more productive life, and to bring about real savings for the people of our state.”  Although this is a good project in terms of technology and upgrading the infrastructure of the state, it is difficult to understand how broadband will make it healthier for the private citizen.

Areas like St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbia and Saint Charles are well service with broadband.  The regions are illustrated at the MoBroadBand website.  The illustrated areas at the website provide an illustration where rural citizens will benefit.

The installation will provide computer access to the Internet.  This program will repair the computer access to the Internet, but how St. Louis and Kansas City are healthier is a head-scratcher considering they have already had broadband access for years.

We agree it is time to upgrade the state’s infrastructure and that it will bring about economic growth for the long-term.  However, we don’t agree in whole with the President’s claims.

You can access the MoBroadbandNow website here.