Grant funds access

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

March 21, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Gone are the days when students went to a library in search of ancient, dusty tomes to complete research. Today, research is mostly about access -- access to the Internet, other libraries and higher education institutions.

Thanks to a $352,000 grant, the Bemidji School District's library -- along with 14 other school libraries, 17 public libraries and two regional library systems -- will be able to dust off their research facilities and provide updated tools.

The grant was awarded by U.S. West Communications. It will augment state funds set aside to connect the library facilities, providing access to the Learning Network of Minnesota.

The money was awarded directly to the Links project Monday at a ceremony held at the Detroit Lakes Public Library.

The Links project is a collaborative effort of 87 school districts and 35 libraries in northwest Minnesota, said Ellis Halgrimson, computer services coordinator for the Bemidji School District. One of nine such similar projects in the state, Links was formed to create an organization to administer the grant money given by the state, and now U.S. West, to connect the libraries, schools and higher ed institutions.

The nine Links-type projects across the state comprise the Learning Network of Minnesota, and the grant will allow the Bemidji district and its partners to be connected to the network sooner than expected.

Halgrimson said the Links project was an attempt by the state to equalize access among school districts and communities throughout the state. Prior to the program, there had been a void of interactive television access in the region, extending from Detroit Lakes north to Bemidji and further to the Kelliher/Northome area.

"ITV has been around to the east and west of us for a while," he said, "But there has been a general lack of it in this region."

Other institutions that will be affected in the region include: the Crookston School District and Public Library, the Detroit Lakes School District and Public Library, the Thief River Falls School District and Public Library, the Brainerd Public Library, the Cass Lake Community Library, and the Park Rapids Public Library.