THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 18, 1995 TAG: 9501170130
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK DUROSE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
With more and more users plugging into the Internet computer network, the Virginia Beach Public Libraries Department has decided it's time they made the connection themselves.
Starting later this month or in early February, the library system will introduce Electronic Magazines, or ``E-Mags,'' to their eight branches.
The service will provide an on-line connection to a database containing more than 400 magazines, dating back to 1980. It will replace the microfiche/microfilm system and eliminate the need for buying and storing hard copies of many periodicals.
``We'll still have the popular magazines like Time and Glamour, in hard copy,'' said Robbin Crace, library supervisor at Kempsville. ``More esoteric magazines won't be ordered anymore, they'll be on line.''
The service, purchased for about $200,000 from a California company called Information Access, will allow users to reference magazine articles by subject, author or even specific date range. Users will be able to call up the particular article needed and print out copies of the text, all from a single work station.
Library officials say that with 38 work-station terminals at eight locations the system should be readily accessible in most situations. Each branch also will feature a laser printer so that any photos or graphics accompanying the text can be reproduced.
Crace, one of the three people chosen to be part of the training team for the project, believes the system will be user-friendly for library patrons.
``Our products do and will have such easy-to-use help screens, people usually just figure it out,'' Crace explained. ``And it could help anyone, really - folks looking for consumer information, people writing books or reports, kids doing homework. We hope it will provide a large number of our customers with what they need.''
While this new system is being installed to offer more information to library users (from a 113 percent increase at the Central Library to a 780 percent increase at the Pungo branch), it was necessitated by a breakdown in the old way of doing things.
``The microfiche reader/printers had become virtually obsolete because we can't get the paper the machine uses anymore,'' explained Toni Lohman, collection management librarian at the Central Library. ``To replace all 20 of those machines would have cost about $10,000 each. We knew we'd have to do this upgrade eventually anyway, so that's the decision we made.''
Lohman also emphasized the increased convenience of this new system.
``This is one-stop shopping, so to speak. Students, for example, will be able to reference, read, evaluate and print all the research they need for an entire project while sitting in one place,'' she said. ``No more going from work station to work station, or driving from branch to branch, to get what you need.''
Nancy Miller, bibliographer for the Central Library, added, ``With this in place, at some point in the future we'll be developing a campus LAN (Local Area Network), so that part of the plan is that all city employees will be able to access this technology straight from their own desk.''
Due to delays in equipment delivery, the exact start-up date for the system is unsure, but there's at least one user who is eagerly awaiting its installation.
Gordon Geiger, a Norfolk State University student and Kempsville resident, learned about the system after reading the library's posted flyer on the addition.
``This technology will save me valuable time and energy on research that can be better used on extracurricular activities,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARK DuROSE
Robbin Crace, library supervisor at Kempsville, says the new
Electronic Magazines system will replace the microfiche/microfilm
system pictured. ``We'll still have the popular magazines like Time
and Glamour, in hard copy,'' she says.
by CNB