
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 14, 1994                   TAG: 9403160007
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Monty s. Leitch
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EMPOWERED AGAIN

THE MARCH 6 New York Times Book Review includes a lengthy review of a CD-ROM: Microsoft Art Gallery, The Collection of the National Gallery, London. I could be wrong, but I think this marks the first time that this venerable tabloid has considered an electronic "book" in its pages.

The occasion is, I think, worth remarking.

I tell you nothing new when I tell you the world of books is not what it used to be. My nephew has a computer that will read his books to him. It does more than merely read the text, too. My nephew can use his mouse to point to elements of the book's illustrations, and the computer will tell him what those pictured objects are. "Rabbit tobacco," his CD-ROM says, in a lush, motherly voice. "Mother Rabbit. Peter Rabbit. Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail."

I've been writing on a computer for almost 10 years now. When the man of the house first suggested we buy one for ourselves, I balked. "I don't understand a thing about them," I seem to recall myself saying.

And that was true.

These days, though, I find myself giving WordPerfect advice to all my writer friends. I even find myself explaining to them the simpler intricacies of DOS. (This because I own a well- thumbed copy of DOS For Dummies.)

I'm also enormously proud to tell you that I've been trained to use Blacksburg's Electronic Village. I can sit at one of the terminals in the town's public library and click away - with mouse or keyboard - right along with the best of the 12-year- olds.

Well, not actually. No adult living can keep up with a 12-year-old on a computer. But I hold my own. With the adults, at least. Especially those over 40.

The day I played around in the Electronic Village, I discovered Shakespeare on-line and the King James Version of the Bible, with concordance.

I browsed around in the catalogs of several libraries, searched for entries on Prozac in a medical self-help directory, and fooled around for a while in the latest United States census.

Others in my training group accessed Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the lyrics of Beatles' songs, the president's agenda. We were ecstatic. We were giddy with knowledge, dizzied by the dazzling lights on our screens.

We were indeed, it seemed, linked to the world!

Of course, on the day we trained, electricity coursed throughout the New River Valley.

I don't for one second think that data bases and CD-ROMs will ever replace books. Even if I had ever thought that, recent experiences with ice and Apco (bless their little hearts!) would have changed my mind.

But, honestly now, don't you think it's wonderful that we can have at our fingertips, for a mere $79.95 and the appropriate hardware, the entire collection of the National Gallery in London? Don't you think it's amazing that children can leaf through entire encyclopedias; and, furthermore, that they are encouraged to do so merely by the gadgetry involved?

This Christmas, I'm asking Santa for my own CD-ROM reader. Maybe my own electronic address, too. Imagine ... "mail" from Calcutta, London, or even Indian Valley, in the slightest blink of an eye!

\ Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.

by CNB