In order to provide free use of computers and free access to the Internet to the rural students and public, ESS has transformed four libraries in the "Adopt a Rural School Library" (ARSL) program into the "Rural Library and Information Centers" (RLIC).

Working closely with local educational agencies and schools, ESS selected the sites for RLICs based on the following school criteria:

1. Centrally located junior or senior high school with 1,000 to 3,000+students, a good teacher/student ratio, and fed by 10 or more elementary schools;
2. Has broadband accessibility; qualified key personnel; a sufficient library collection; and room to house the computers;
3. The school principal consents to sign an agreement with the director of local education bureau, local ESS representatives and ESS. The agreement stipulates that the RLIC is open to the public after school hours and on Saturdays; provides computer training classes, makes books available to the surrounding feeder elementary schools and the rural public; and provides consulting support to local farming technology stations.

Through the RLIC program, ESS awards each qualified school with more books for the library, thirty computer terminals for students and one enhanced personal computer for the teachers and librarians, one server to centrally control the local area network, and to connect with the Internet for the students in the remote areas to receive the benefit of online education provided by the educational networks. The program also offers fellowships to teachers and librarians for attending the ESS annual Professional Development Conferences (PDCs) and other training workshops. In exchange, the information technology teaching staff and librarians offer free weekly training to the rural public. They also provide free consultation to local farming technology stations. ESS is thus helping the farming population tap online information from the agricultural networks to navigate through climate change, the onset of animal or plant disease, the price movement of their produce, and/or the management of their business. The students can also use this resource to help their family farms.

All together, ten RLICs have been awarded to elementary, junior or senior high schools in the impoverished and underserved communities of Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Hubei provinces.

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; and 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.