NORWAY – The newest wave of computer gifts to Norway Memorial Library is now installed in the multipurpose room downstairs.
Four years ago, the library received seven computers from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which donates money to various causes, including providing technology to disadvantaged community libraries.
Now, a donor called the JTG Foundation, which was formed by John T. Gorman in 1995 and is based in Lewiston, has stepped up to make donations in Maine, but with double the impact of the Gates Foundation, according to library officials.
Norway Library Director Ann Siekman said the foundation gave her library six new thin-screened computers with updated Windows operating systems.
The foundation has provided 76 computers to 22 public libraries in northern Maine counties, and this year is working with Oxford, Franklin, Hancock and Penobscot counties, said Linda Lord of the Maine State Library.
“The JTG foundation came to us and offered to give grants for computers … to the more economically challenged communities in Maine,” Lord said, adding that at the time, there was no funding available for technology updates.
When the Gates Foundation bought computers for poorer community libraries, it did so hoping that towns would pay for upgrades, Lord explained.
“But you know what Maine’s economic circumstances are. This is very difficult for Maine libraries to do,” she said.
To complement the new computers in Norway’s library, the Maine Community Foundation has also bought new computer tables, chairs, software, cabling and a color printer. It also paid for the system’s installation, Siekman said.
The library will provide about nine hours a week for open lab time on a first-come, first-served basis. And the library, along with Oxford Hills Adult Education, is offering classes that take advantage of the computers.
“A lot of elderly people like our tutorials because they don’t overwhelm them,” Siekman said of the library’s introductory computer courses. “It is just enough familiarity so they’re not intimidated.”
The library has held computer skills classes for four years, but always was limited to one computer, which students had to crowd around, Siekman said.
In addition, organizations that would like to use the computers for training their staff can reserve them.
Ramsey Ludlow, who teaches adult education classes, said computers are helpful for writing classes. “We have found out that if they have to totally rewrite their draft, they’ll never revise it,” she said Monday afternoon as she taught an English class to students at the library.
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