THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September, 2, 1994 TAG: 9408310111
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
When it came time for WFOS FM-88.7, the radio station of Chesapeake Public Schools, to finally catalog and inventory its massive vinyl record and compact disc collection, they handed the assignment to a Great Bridge High School junior.
``We have about 25,000 records and about 6,000 CDs, not to mention what we have on reel-to-reel tape and on cassettes,'' said Dennis McCurdy, station program director and broadcast instructor. ``We have the largest un-inventoried musical collection in Virginia and, according to the Chesapeake School Board, this huge collection was unaccounted for and needed to be cataloged. I didn't have the time or expertise to do it.''
So McCurdy turned to 15-year-old Douglas E. Heimburger for help.
Heimburger, despite his young age, had the computer knowledge and creativity to come up with a brand new disc/record cataloging program from scratch.
``Hey, this kid knows computers,'' McCurdy said. ``He came up with his own system, his own program to allow us to index, inventory and catalog our library of recorded music.''
The son of Sue and Ron Heimburger of Wilson Heights has been around electronic equipment all his life. Influenced by his father, who manages logistics for Norfolk Southern, Heimburger has been using computers for the past 10 years.
When he was a sixth-grader in Fort Wayne, Ind., he worked behind the scenes at a cable television educational access station helping direct, do audio work, programming and other jobs.
The articulate teen is also interested in politics, genetics and biochemistry. He's keen on technical and research writing and is a member of the Model United Nations and the Chesapeake Challenge Team.
Heimburger joined WFOS in the summer of 1992 when he was 13.
``It looked interesting,'' he explained. Especially interesting was the opportunity to develop the new program on his own.
``I started working on it last summer,'' he said. ``We couldn't go with any kind of conventional system, so I had to come up with my own. It took a while. I had to figure out exactly how to do it. I referred to computer books at home.''
While working on the program Heimburger met with McCurdy weekly to inform him of his progress.
He said the new program and interface had to be user-friendly so the station's employees and students could learn to use it. It had to be able to handle new information, and it had to be cross-referenced so one could look for a particular piece of music in several ways, including the composer's name, composition title, orchestra name, length of piece, selection number, soloist or several other ways.
In addition, Heimburger also programmed the station's Hewlett-Packard Vectra computer with the daily program logs and program guide mailing list.
Heimburger said he based his new program on the graphical Microsoft Windows system with the database software running under the FoxPro system.
Sticking to the station's old alphabetical filing, Heimburger used bar codes (the kind on manufactured products in stores) on each disc.
``I developed a coding system that preserved most of the old alphabetical system,'' he said. ``Each disc is assigned a proprietary number by the computer, which consists of eight letters and four numbers, which is printed on a bar code label placed on the back of a CD jewel case.''
All compact discs are now being filed back on the WFOS shelves according to this code, which will make inventories very easy to do by simply using an electronic scanner.
If programmers need a particular piece of music, all they must do is enter information into the computer and, in a manner of seconds, they will have a menu of available selections.
``The best part of this system is its search capabilities,'' Heimburger said.
For example, if there was a need for a composition over 20 minutes in length written by Aaron Copland and conducted by Copland, the computer, in a matter of seconds, came up with four selections along with each composition's disc track number and where the compact disc could be found.
After having developed the new program, Heimburger then taught a group of student volunteers to use the Word Perfect word-processing software during a recent five-hour class. Students learned how to run the computer and how to enter information using his system.
``I had to make sure people could easily use it,'' he said. ``It had to be easy for people to enter additional information into the system.''
Now the station enters, on average, about 50 discs a day into its system. So far, Heimburger and his student volunteers have cataloged and entered more than 800 compact discs.
``Basically 80 percent of the time someone is entering disc information into the system,'' Heimburger said. ``It keeps track of everything, and it can search for anything. It's nice to see that everybody's taking to it so well.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
Douglas Heimburger has worked at WFOS since the summer of 1992.
by CNB