NEW LIBRARY COMPUTERS ENCOURAGE KIDS TO READ

SCOTT CITY -- The Scott City Elementary School has found a way to spark a child's interest in reading and to stoke the fire of knowledge that follows.

Thanks to a grant written in part by Superintendent Doug Berry, the school now has a computer indexing system, which children can use to find a book they want to read.

The computer system allows the child to type in what he or she knows about a book, such as a word in the title, the author or the subject matter.

The computer will then digest the information and produce a list of books with that word in the title, by that author or on the given subject.

Scott City, which installed the program about 10 years ago, was one of the first schools in the state to receive the Circulation/Catalog Plus.

"This is a really easy way for kids to find books," said Loretta Templeton, elementary school librarian. "The Cape Girardeau schools are just getting this kind of thing now.

"We're preparing to get hooked up to InterNet, which would allow us to draw from computer information bases all over the world," she said.

Templeton said the program encourages young people to read. She said it is not at all uncommon for the children to come in during recess or during their free time to "check out" the new books in the library.

"We average about 5,000 books checked out every month," she said. "Then if you know that we have about 450 students in the elementary grades, you can see how much the kids are reading."

The computer replaced a traditional card-catalog system that Templeton said was anything but effective.

"The card catalog was self-defeating," she said. "If a child has not yet mastered the alphabet, they would have to depend on me to find the book they are looking for.

"That's not really encouraging them to read," she said.

But it is not just the students who benefit from the computerized indexing system. Templeton said the chore of cataloging and tracking books has been made 1,000 times easier by the quick-thinking of her automated library mate.

"It saves me all kinds of clerical time," she said. "All the information about the books that are delivered to the school now come on a computer disc.

"All I have left to do is put the bar code and the labels on the books -- the computer reads the disc in an hour or so and adds the information to its data bank," Templeton continued. "I was always behind when it came to filing and refiling cards. This is always up to date."

Templeton also pointed out other benefits to the system, such as being able to print out a list of overdue books, keeping an inventory of the library and for placing books on reserve for young readers.

Books put on reserve by the students will be delivered to their classrooms after they have been turned in.

"I used to have to close the library for three weeks for inventory," said Templeton. "Now I can do it while the library is open, giving the children a lot more access to the books."

To add to the volumes on the shelves, the young students raised more than $14,000 last year to buy new books.

"Adding those books to our reserve won't be the hassle that it would have been before," she said. "The books will be available to the children almost immediately."

Templeton said the computerization of the elementary library reflects a growing trend in education.

"Education is not so much knowing and memorizing facts any more, but it is knowing how to access information when you need it," she said. "Students today need skills to find out what they need to know -- they can no longer learn everything.

"That is why things like the InterNet system is important," she said. "It literally opens up a whole new world of information to the young people."