Nine high schools in four western states have been awarded grants to outfit their libraries with CD-ROM technology using a $109,520 grant from the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust of Portland, Oregon. Each library will receive a two-year subscription to LaserCat, a CD-ROM data base produced by the Western Library Network, and all of the necessary equipment and training to use it.
LaserCat will make it easy for students, teachers, and librarians to locate items in major libraries throughout the region. The CD-ROM product holds information on over two million books, and other materials held by some 250 libraries. The CD-ROM data base can be searched by author, title, subject, and standard book numbers. It supports browsing, exact searches and keyword searches. Searches may also be scoped by library, material format, publication data, language, government documents, large print, and juvenile materials. In addition LaserCat can print bibliographies, cards and labels, and records can be downloaded for use in local systems.
The schools chosen to participate in the program were nominated by their state library or department of education.
[Contact: David Wasser, Western Library Network, Washington State Library, Olympia, WA 98504; (206) 459-6518.]
