ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996               TAG: 9608270141
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS         PAGE: 30   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER

OLD MEETS NEW AT THE FORMER TERMITE TEMPLE

Like many other 40-year-olds, Virginia Tech's Carol M. Newman Library is adjusting old equipment to meet new demands.

Conceived and constructed in old-fashioned card catalog days, the facility is undergoing a radical internal makeover, as the electronic information revolution creates 21st-century expectations and opportunities.

Newman Library in 1956 replaced a converted chapel building that had been dubbed the "temple of termites." Twenty-five years later, the overcrowded "new" building was expanded to double its size and capacity.

In recent years, growing pains have caused the facility and its staff to serve computers and many new, external customers. Newman Library also is mature enough now to have spawned offspring of its own - such as VTLS Inc., the library computer cataloging system - and has seen them leave the nest for their own independent lives.

Traditional library resources remain a primary focus. "The book is not going to go away," said Eileen Hitchingham, Tech's dean of University Libraries.

Lately, however, there has been what she calls "a shift in balance" in the old and new ways to gather, store and convey information. This quiet yet dynamic change has repositioned the library's staff, its limited financial resources and its physical space.

The goal, Hitchingham said, is to make the library "more in tune with what our users are asking."

Three years ago, the library didn't have a New Media Center. Now it's one of the busiest places on campus, if all the activity on one morning late in Tech's spring semester is indicative.

The room on the library's second floor is filled with computers and students intently pursuing sophisticated class assignments, such as setting up their own Internet home pages or creating their own programs on CD-ROM.

Initially, the New Media Center provided Tech faculty members with computer training, said Director Ed Schwartz. Now it has diversified its mission to include

training students, members of the public and local organizations.

"Technology just keeps on moving forward," Schwartz said. "It's pretty incredible. None of this was available four years ago."

Around the corner on the library's second floor, computers also have assumed a much wider role in the reference department. ``Now, more and more, people are asking, `What database do I use?''' said Ann Keys, a reference assistant.

Instead of thumbing through thick tomes or picking the reference librarian's brain, users conduct key word or subject searches in any of the various electronic services that cover current events, business, the arts, science or law.

Internally, the library's holdings are accessed by VTLS, the innovative computer system Tech developed a decade ago to replace card catalogs. VTLS, once housed in the library, had become a multimillion dollar business used by libraries across the world.

LENGTH: Medium:   63 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  LORA GORDON. 1. Forestry graduate student Rob Farrell 
          (right) researches articles on ozone damage beneath a portrait of 
          Albert Einstein. 2. Tech students dream of warmer climes as they 
          work on multimedia projects.