In order to introduce information technology to the students and the public of the underserved communities in rural China, ESS has embarked on the task of transforming libraries in the "Adopt a Rural School Library" (ARSL) program into "Rural Library and Information Centers" (RLICs).

All together, four RLICs have been awarded to centrally-located junior or senior high schools that are in the impoverished communities of Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan provinces. Through the RLIC program, ESS awards the qualified schools with computers and more books, fellowships to teachers and librarians for attending the annual ESS Professional Development Conferences (PDCs), and other training workshops. One school in each of the four provinces has been awarded the RLIC. The qualification criteria for a school to be awarded a RLIC are: 1,000 to 3,000+students; a good teacher/student ratio; and fed by 10 or more elementary schools. In exchange, the schools offer free computer use and free access to the Internet to the rural public after school hours and on Saturdays. Furthermore, the information technology teaching staff and librarians offer free weekly training sessions to the rural public, including the use of basic database software (i.e., spreadsheets) and how to access the Internet. ESS is thus also helping the farming population tap online information for the benefit of their farming business.

The major future goals of ESS are:

• To transform more traditional ARSLs into RLICs,
• To make the ESS PDCs available to more rural teachers and principals,
• To increase the number of free information technology training sessions to the public.

Students at the RLIC at Meng Ba Township, Zhen Yuan County, Gansu Province raised two double happiness banners to celebrate the award of computers and other equipment by ESS.		Students at the Gansu RLIC getting to know their computers the first time.
Teachers and librarians in one of the training sessions.		Students at the Experimental Middle School of Lin Xi County, Inner Mongolia focusing on their computers at the RLIC contributed through ESS.