For Washington-Centerville Library officials, that is a great example of how their free Internet University program can give people new skills.
“If we start to see a need in the community, or on our best days anticipate a need, we try to respond,” said Georgia Mergler, the library’s community relations manager.
“We try to be on the leading edge rather than wait until there’s a full-blown outcry.”
The library started offering Internet University courses in 1996, and they have been taught by Centerville’s own reference librarians for the past dozen years. The classes take one or two days, at just an hour or two per day, and participants get hands-on training on the library’s computers.
Mergler said the library’s core classes include basic and advanced levels of e-mail, Web searching and other Internet skills. But they have also offered courses on eBay buying and selling, internet job searching and last week’s two-day genealogy session, where reference librarian Anne Wachs was guiding people to online death certificates and other records or their ancestors.
“When I first came here, I didn’t have anything,” Vance said. “But the library folks try to help you and spur you on.”
Mergler said the library offered more than 70 free Internet University programs in 2009, drawing more than 1,000 people of all ages and backgrounds.
For more information on the series, call (937) 433-8091 or visit www.wclibrary.info/internet/university.asp.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2278 or jkelley@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author
