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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 15, 1994                   TAG: 9401170233
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

A RIDE ON ELECTRONIC STREETS

\ Step right up ladies and gentlemen, hackers extraordinaire and computer illiterates alike, and take your turn at the keyboard.

Here at the Blacksburg library, press a button and buff up on history from Austria. Read the complete works of Shakespeare in fluorescent computer-screen color. Send a message to Bill. Clinton, that is.

It's the Blacksburg Electronic Village come to life, at your fingertips. It's Internet: a computer attached to 12,000 computer networks, 2 million computers and 20 million users worldwide.

And it's free.

The Electronic Village, an experimental project run by C&P Telephone, Virginia Tech and Blacksburg, went on-line in early October, allowing residents with personal computers to hitch up to the long-awaited network. Today, it brings anyone who wants to use it into the fold.

The library has set up seven terminals that residents can use to wade through the seemingly-endless categories of information that Internet provides. With a federal grant, computer hardware donations from Massachusetts-based Xyplex Inc., and a data line installed by Bell Atlantic of Virginia, the library has been able to offer it for free.

The link up is the only one of its kind in Virginia, and one of only a handful in the nation.

``The wealth of information in Internet is astonishing,'' said Steve Helm, computer specialist with the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library.

Bringing ``the national information superhighway down to the local level,'' is its goal, he said. Where only about 300 town residents have signed on to the Electronic Village through their home computers, this opens up the system to everyone.

The Electronic Village is a prototype network designed to connect a community's residents with each other via fiber-optic cable, computer usage, electronic mail and the desire for speedy transfer of information. The Internet connection takes it to the thousands of other networks across the globe, each with its own store of information.

``Right now this is an experiment,'' said Andrew Cohill, director of development for BEV. But someday it'll be just like using a telephone, he hopes.

And its not just for adults. With two terminals set up in the library's children's section, kids are invited, too. Heck, it might just be the kids teaching the adults how to use the system.

``The 8-, 9-, 10-year-olds are going to go nuts,'' Cohill said. Library personnel will be able to answer questions, and workshops have been scheduled this month and next to train beginners 16 years old and up.

One use of the system will allow users to download entire books into the computer. Library personnel aren't worried about it making their jobs obsolete - hard copy will always be around, they say - but the system is ``redefining what the library is about,'' Helm said. ``A lot bigger and more than just books,'' it is now, he says.

``The project is really about people, about community, about asking questions ... [and now] about libraries better serving the community,'' he said.

Don't disappoint him. He`s looking for a packed house of information-seekers today.