Lister Hill Letter
Newsletter of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB

March/April 1998

LHL Intern works on Gates Foundation Project

In addition to her internship here at Lister Hill Library, Suzy has been working since December, 1997 as a student intern with the Gates Library Foundation (GLF) project here in Alabama. The goal of the project, funded by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, is to provide Internet access to traditionally under-served areas. As a GLF intern, Suzy works closely with the Seattle-based non-profit organization Technical Resources Institute (TRI) which serves as the project's training, logistics, and technical services partner. Suzy is one of five GLF interns selected from the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Suzy's work with GLF and TRI has been in two main areas of the project. The first is to help TRI trainers teach computer training workshops where rural librarians learn how to use their GLF computers. Subsequently, the librarians return to their communities and teach their patrons how to use the technology. In addition to assisting with training, Suzy provides set-up and technical follow-up assistance to librarians who are having technical difficulties with their new computers.

Because so much of the work involves site visits to rural libraries, Suzy has seen a great deal of rural Alabama over the past few months. The rewards, however, are worth the long hours of hard work. "Being a part of the Gates project in its pioneering stage is truly exciting. All of us, the trainers, the interns and the librarians have learned so much. The best thing about the work, though, is going back to a library after setting up a computer and watching patrons, young and old, use the Internet to get information they might otherwise not have access to in a rural community."