Let an award-winning school library media specialist who has implemented a local area network (LAN) in her media center help you plan this important addition to your media center while avoiding the pitfalls. This hands-on practical guide contains all the information the network novice needs to plan, fund, create, and maintain a LAN in the media center. Based on the experience of the school library media specialist who received the 1994 Follett/AASL Microcomputer in the Media Center Award for creating a local area network in the high school media center, this guide describes the procedures for planning, designing, funding, installing, organizing, training, evaluating, and maintaining a LAN in a library media center setting. Step-by-step nontechnical instructions and advice for creating an information network are presented in an understandable format. How to expand into a school-district wide area network (WAN) and gain access to the Internet are also discussed.

This comprehensive work takes the network novice from dream to implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of a local area network. It covers funding sources, tips for writing technology grants, requests for proposals from vendors, staff inservice and student training, evaluation and assessment, student internships, technology teams, troubleshooting equipment, and network administration. Useful forms, simple network schematic diagrams, a model school-board approved electronic resources policy, a glossary of technical terms, and sample assessment tools are included. No other book walks the library media specialist through every step in creating a LAN. Media professionals who want to provide networked electronic information to the staff and students but are not sure of how to proceed will benefit from this clear, nontechnical guide to the process.

BECKY R. MATHER has been a media specialist at the elementary, junior high, and senior high levels for 24 years. She currently is Media Specialist at Muscatine High School, Muscatine, Iowa and Director of Media Services in the Muscatine Community School District. An avid computer user since 1982, she received the Follett/AASL Microcomputer in the Media Center Award in 1994. She has written journal articles on incorporating electronic technology in the media center for School Library Journal, Book Report, and Technology Connection.