Giving the gift of technology

IU and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have teamed up to help give important technology resources to underprivileged Indiana libraries.\nChosen because it has the state's only accredited graduate library science program, IU has become a local branch of a nationwide effort by the Gates Foundation to upgrade the technological capabilities of struggling libraries.\nThe Gates Foundation stated in a Dec. 11 press release it will donate $5.8 million in the form of computers, software and training to the libraries receiving the grant. One hundred twenty-six library systems in Indiana, including the Monroe County Public Library, will benefit from the grant. \nThe Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a not-for-profit organization started in Jan. 2000 by Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp. The foundation is run out of Seattle, Wash. by Gates' father William H. Gates Sr. and Patty Stonesifer. The foundation has a total endowment of $24.2 billion. \nA representative of the Gates Foundation interviewed 30 candidates from the IU graduate school of Library and Information Science, and six were chosen to serve as interns for the Indiana Library Program. The interns will help technicians from Microsoft to set up the computer networks and train library staff in their usage. As compensation for their work, interns receive full tuition to their respective programs, a stipend and travel allowances.\nDan Amonett, a doctoral student in Information Science, was one of those chosen to participate. \n"As an intern, we're all over the state in different regional campuses, with trainers from Microsoft, and we help them install computers," Amonett said.\nThe Microsoft program is reaching into areas of Indiana where technology had previously been an unreachable dream. \n"I didn't really realize what limitations (the libraries) had, until going in and not seeing any computers at all," Amonett said. "It's really been an eye-opening experience to see what kind of technological poverty these places are in."\nAlberta Comer, a master's student in Library Science was also chosen to be an intern.\n"I think this is important because it's good to have (interns) get involved in the real world of work. But even more so, I think a university has some responsibility that people, I mean everyday people, can participate in technology."\nComer also said that the partnership of the Gates Foundation and the University will boost the IU name in the eyes of many potential students around the state. With the new computers, many students and staff are getting to access the internet for the first time.\n"Some of the libraries that I have gone to, this is going to be their first real computer," Comer said. "Two of the women in one library were 60 or 70 years old, and they had never touched a computer before."\nThe interns will have a continued duty to train and support the recipient libraries over the next two years.\nComer was excited to be a part of both the experience and the service.\n"I grew up in a community with no library," Comer said. "I know what it's like"