To Jarvis Olivera, the first stop on his “journey of a thousand miles” is the Brentwood Public Library.

The warehouse supervisor started going there last month to make the most of his grandmother’s decision to give him $500 per week so he can switch careers and become a cybersecurity expert. For four hours most days, he said, he’ll be at the library taking online classes, even though he has web access at home.

I like to come to the library because it brings me to a different state of mind.

- Jarvis Olivera, Brentwood resident

“I like to come to the library because it brings me to a different state of mind,” said Jarvis, 30, of Brentwood. “This is a place of study. I’m looking around and seeing people focus on study and pursuing their own goals.”

Free Wi-Fi is among the most popular and pivotal offerings at Brentwood Public Library, one of the biggest and busiest libraries on Long Island, although it’s also one advocates say could be threatened by potential federal funding cuts.

To Brentwood Library director Tom Tarantowicz, the service reflects the evolving role of libraries as community service centers, which Newsday will explore in the LI Life series “LI Libraries: Lending books, lending a hand” beginning this week.

Space once largely dedicated to shelves for reference books and other past priorities has been reimagined for the online times — glassed-in quiet rooms where an Iraq War veteran practices moves in a Zoom dance class for veterans with PTSD; rows of cubicles for individuals with their laptops and tablets; and larger rooms in the basement, where high schoolers often study. This public access has attracted a wide range of patrons, such as taxpayers filling out their forms, the resident of a group home without internet access and sports fans catching up on games, library officials said.

During the pandemic, access to the internet increased the divide between the haves and have-nots. When school lessons were put online, students without home computers were lent laptops, but it became apparent that they couldn’t learn without Wi-Fi.

That was a clear signal to libraries across Long Island. They bought and lent out Wi-Fi hot spots, and most libraries said they didn’t have enough to meet the demand. 

In recent years, stories have spread of people in the community cutting or reducing internet service because they lost jobs and income, those interviewed said.

Eight years ago, hot spots were installed in parts of the Brentwood library, especially the teenagers’ room. The Brentwood library’s annual data show there were 56,000 sessions last year using Wi-Fi hot spots.

In January, the library quietly debuted Wi-Fi antennas on more than a dozen lampposts as part of its parking lot. Officials used $500,000 from reserves in anticipation of awarded state grants to install the lighting, cable and online systems enabling patrons to access it outside even when the library is closed.

Many homeowners in the community do not have the funds to pay for Wi-Fi.

- Brentwood Library director Tom Tarantowicz

“Since we are a very busy public library, even though we’re open 70 hours a week, many residents requested access to Wi-Fi when the library was closed,” Tarantowicz said. “Many homeowners in the community do not have the funds to pay for Wi-Fi. It presents the challenge for families to access information for students and others to access resources online.”

Wilson Paul, 42, an Uber driver, is a nursing student at Mercy University in the Bronx, who wants to get away from home distractions like his children and the lure of snacks and sleep.

He sits with his laptop four nights a week on the first floor, but the 9 p.m. closing time forced him to shut down while in study mode, in the middle of test prep.

“Sometimes, I wished I could go to 11 o’clock,” the Bay Shore resident recalled.

But now, his car can be his study room, he said: “I can go to the parking lot and finish what I’m doing.”

The number of parking lot users climbed from 175 in January to as high as 479 in April, or an average of 327 users per day in the first five months, according to library figures.

At the library’s career counseling center, head librarian Olivia Branigan said she and others hear once in a while of patrons who missed job offers and application deadlines because they’ve used up their data, don’t have home Wi-Fi or just can’t pay the bills.

But by signing into the library’s Wi-Fi, they can use their phones to access emails and apps even if they don’t have cellular service, Branigan noted.

“They can’t live in the library parking lot or the library building, but they know at least they can get to certain parts of their phone with internet access,” she said.

“A lot of people realize ‘if there’s free Wi-Fi, I’m going to limit my data plan usage’ because they may have a limited-amount data plan, and they don’t want to go over that because they would have to pay more.”

Recently, staff members said they got emotional when a longtime patron who had been rejected for a number of jobs was hired by Costco following an online interview, with logistics set up at the library, Branigan recounted.

“She comes here all the time, and we felt bad for her because she’s older and she expressed that maybe people didn’t want to hire her because of her age,” the career center’s head librarian said. “So we were very happy . . . she got the job. You develop a sentiment for people when they come quite often.”

Dania Castellanos, 40, of Brentwood, wants to go beyond her job at Dunkin’. 

“I don’t want to work for anybody else anymore,” she said.

With earbuds on and a Wall Street trader speaking live on her tablet, she’s spending two hours per day to learn about the stock market. She has internet at home, she said, but the library’s quiet atmosphere allows her to focus.

“He just made $2,000,” Castellanos exclaimed at one point.

After the Arias family moved to a new apartment, mom Maria found herself in the Brentwood library with her head propped up in one hand, waiting for her 9-year-old twins, Aylen and Eliseo, to finish their homework on their computers.

She had forgotten to arrange for internet connection in the new home ahead of time. “I’ve learned my lesson,” she said with a rueful smile.

Like other patrons, she said she’s worried about proposed federal cuts to the museum and library system, one that can limit the array of services to residents.

“For this community, this library is the heart and soul,” said Arias, 44. “We need the library.”

Brentwood and its counterparts have been bracing themselves for a multipronged threat to free services, especially over what’s called the “E-rate” funding or education rate. Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, libraries have been getting this aid to help cover the cost of connecting to the internet and other similar needs. 

A lawsuit filed by the conservative advocacy group Consumers’ Research has challenged the legality of the program, and the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the case this year. On top of that, the Senate has voted to bar E-rate funding for hot spots, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) arguing it is costly and could allow children to have unsupervised internet access. The House will later take up the issue.

From 1998, the first funded year, to 2023, an average of $10 million has been funneled to New York libraries, with $335,000 divided among the 56 in Suffolk, according to Kevin Verbesey, executive director of the Suffolk Cooperative Library System. The $9.5 million 2025-26 Brentwood library budget is funded by about $8.9 million in local taxes, with the rest coming from grants, fundraising and other government aid.

If this is eliminated, it will greatly curtail libraries’ ability to support patrons with this desperately needed service, particularly for those in economic need or in spaces where bandwidth is not easily accessible.

- Kevin Verbesey, executive director of the Suffolk Cooperative Library System

“If this is eliminated, it will greatly curtail libraries’ ability to support patrons with this desperately needed service, particularly for those in economic need or in spaces where bandwidth is not easily accessible,” Verbesey said.

Another threat: The Trump administration has started to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services under a March executive order that calls it and other agencies “unnecessary.” The demise of the institute, created by Congress in 1996, would reduce construction and other state aid to libraries, resulting in fewer services and higher taxes, library advocates warn.

At Brentwood’s annual meeting, longtime patrons voiced concern. Tarantowicz made no predictions but noted that $500,000 in state reimbursement that was previously approved has not been distributed for the parking lot Wi-Fi project.

Meanwhile, Brentwood resident Hugo Blascio, 61, will continue to walk 25 minutes to the library nearly every day to watch prayer sermons. His $25 per month phone plan does not provide enough data for Blascio, who said he found peace through God and goes to church twice a week, to watch as much as he would like.

“This is where you have to save because I’m not rich,” he said. “This [the Wi-Fi] is like an extra blessing.”