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ACTION,·· FO R LIBRARI E S
c
. BCRNETWORK NEWS
Bibliographical Center for Rese~rch • Volume XX; No 4. April
CD·ROM Networ.k is Source of Pride
forDoberty High Scho.ol Students
By Sharon Hoffhines
When Media Specialist Sally Miller ';btained $55,000 in
1990 to install a CD,ROM network at Doherty High
School in Colorado Springs, she knew that finding regn­lar
funding for the project's ongoing support would be .
impossible, ''Nationally, school districts want to move
into new areas, b~t th_ey don't want to hire new st~ff or
p"rovide training," Miller said.
"So she turned to the best source of labor a teache; has :.....
her students.
, . '.'One student inspired me," Miller said of Bob Emmot,
then a junior at Doherty. Emmot, who worked in the
- library-media center processing textbooks, was mo;e
. knowledgeable about computers than most adults
Miller knew. Emmot put together the plans for·the
CD-ROM network and installed it himself. He and'
Miller wrote and published hand"outs for a teacher in­serv{
ce on ho"-w to-use the ne:w network; Eqlffiot then
taught the seminar.
Emmot managed the. network for the remaining tWo·
years he was a student at Doherty, upgrading the sys-
- tern, previewing CD-ROMs and writiq.g reference,mate- -
'rials instructing other Doherty students how 'to use the
network. Miller brought in 12 to 14 additional students
. to work in the Doherty Information Center's Students-
. as-Teachers program: Besides helping to maintain the­n~
twork, they demonstra~e and train others to use the
hardware and softwa" in the-computer network, i
ingWindows, WotclP ~ ect, QuaitroPro,'Lantas ,t,
DIALbG searches and~ Inte~net. Last yea - e stu'
dents installed a Macintosh k a _ 001, and .
just recently added a color print~r:an scanner.
The information center has ~set up eight computer work­stations
throughout the school, four of them stand- '
alone st~tions; two of which have six-disc CD-ROM
minichangers. Students, who have been taught at
Doherty to do p;perless research, load the databases
they need, scroll'thr01igh~and find what they want,
download the information onto their own computer
disks and take them home to read. Eight indexes are
· available, including InfoTrac, News Bank, MSBook­shelf,
SIRS {Social Issues Resource Series),Discovering
Authors and Literary Index', - .
~Besides taking advantage of today's ~tudents; highly
· auditory and visuallearn,ing styles, the Doherty project
helped reduce the school library's high book-theft rate
; because'most·resources the students need are' now on
the computer network.
Emniot, although nowa sophomore at the University ~
~ of Colorado .at Colorado Springs where he is a com­puter
science major, iS,still called in,as ~ computer con­sultant
by Miller. He has his own business, Learning
· System Consultants Inc" and jpined Jim Hensinger,
manager of MicroSystems & Se"';'ices at BCR, in 'teach~
ing.a CD-ROM networking workshop in February at
the 1994 Colorado Educational Media Association Con­ference
in Colorado Springs.
· Co~tinued on page Z
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