THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170364
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Folks from seven cities had a chat Tuesday morning without having to deal with highway traffic.
``It's great to get together without the traffic jams,'' said Ruthann Kellum of the Hampton Library Board.
She and representatives from other Hampton Roads cities, including Portsmouth Mayor Gloria O. Webb, got together on the Community Link, a project that gives the public free access to information on-line services on the Internet's World Wide Web. Participants include the public libraries in Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson and York County.
``It's the public's on-ramp to the information superhighway,'' Webb read from the messages on the screen at the Portsmouth Main Library. The service provides access to city agencies, local museums and more.
``The public libraries are leveling the field for everybody,'' Portsmouth Library Director Dean Burgess said. ``Even if you don'thave $2,000 to buy a computer, you can access all the information that is available across the United States when you're doing a research project or school homework.''
Community Link, originally available only in two Norfolk libraries, is a project spearheaded by WHRO, the public broadcasting affiliate in Norfolk, with grants from Bell Atlantic Corp., the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Public Broadcasting Service.
The two Norfolk sites opened last fall. The World Wide Web-based information system debuted across Hampton Roads on Tuesday, what they called ``Log-on(AT)the Library Day.''
``Welcome to the virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony,'' WHRO Manager John Morrison wrote from his office in Norfolk.
Only the Chesapeake library was missing from the chat.
Chesapeake Library Director Peggy Stillman said the library was ``going full scale'' with the Community Link. ``But I'm not sure we were invited to the ribbon-cutting.''
Portsmouth's mayor confessed that she has yet to learn to balance her personal checkbook on a computer her husband bought her last year for just that purpose. But she was game for the Tuesday ceremony.
``Quick, I need a lesson,'' she told Gary Haddox, the Portsmouth reference librarian who set up the computer.
The first lesson was that it is not good ``netiquette'' to communicate in all-capital letters.
``When you use all caps, you're shouting,'' Haddox told the mayor.
``I am shouting,'' Webb replied. ``I'm shouting WELCOME TO PORTSMOUTH.''
The quick chat among city officials was but a snippet of what citizens will be able to do in the future when they go to the library.
Portsmouth bought a computer, printer and telephone lines specifically for the project with a $3,000 grant from the city's Family Preservation Act money.
WHRO is paying for access to the Internet and for Community Link. The cities will pick up the monthly telephone line charges. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Mark Mitchell/The Virginian-Pilot
Portsmouth Mayor Gloria O. Webb greets other Hampton Roads officials
on the Community Link.
by CNB