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INTERACTIVE TELEVISION IS RIGHT ON CUE, PROVIDING REFERENCE SERVICES TO MINNESOTA INMATES
Picture this: A young woman enters a room and sits down behind a long white counter. A technician begins adjusting cameras, cables, and sound levels. She looks at her face on the monitor, straightening her collar, smoothing her hair, and trying out a "natural" smile. "OK to go?" she asks the technician. "Sound check-OK. Picture check-OK. You're on!" he replies.
What is this scene? An anchorwoman on local TV or the future of librarianship? You guessed it. The above is the scene every other Friday afternoon as Law Library Service to Prisoners (LLSP), a part of the Outreach Services Department of the Minnesota State Law Library, provides reference service to the remote Moose Lake Correctional Facility in Minnesota via interactive television (ITV).
ITV, of course, is not brand-new. Many librarians have attended teleconferences that use ITV technology, or have taken library school courses or other classes via ITV. The state of Minnesota, where LLSP is located, has been increasing its use of ITV dramatically in the past several years. In 1994 there were only fewer than a dozen ITV sites in the state; by 1995 that number had grown to 85. By the end of 1996 it had reached 100.
ITV is used by government agencies to hold regional meetings, urban/outstate working groups, and even hearings regarding Department of Human Services commitments to state hospitals. Samantha Annala of the Minnesota Department of Administration's InterTechnologies Group sees ITV as the wave of the future and a natural format for meetings and conferences in education and medicine. "We do much too much driving in this state," she said. "It wastes a tremendous amount of time and can be dangerous here in the winter."
One place where Annala has found only moderate enthusiasm for ITV is in the library community. Although the Minnesota legislature's 1995 K-12 Libraries Initiative provided funding to wire nearly all schools and regional libraries in the state, she noted that libraries seem to be primarily interested in the Internet possibilities generated by the funding. "I hope they begin to take advantage of the opportunities created by ITV as well," she added.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections is committed to ITV technology....