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Cottage Grove Sentinel - August 21, 1996 City Desk Big guy with big ideas also has a big heart Have I ever told you about my friend, Andrew? He didn't start out as my friend, you know. Here's the story about how he became my friend and an even better friend to the community. About a year ago at the Library we were struggling to connect to the Internet. A group of people had worked together using older, reconditioned personal computers to create a local network in the Library. After a long period of time, connection to cyberspace was accomplished, but speed, reliability, and ease of use were a problem. Plus, a whole bunch of us were way down on the learning curve. As a Library patron, Andrew had watched all this activity (we're a very small place, after all) with interest. One day he approached me and asked if he could volunteer to help us. It didn't take long to realize that he knew a lot more than most of us. So a new partnership was born. Over the next several months, Andrew gave focus to our project. He asked what the Library wanted to accomplish. We sat and mapped out how to get from here to there. Every time I talked to him I learned something new, different, or exciting about the Internet. Andrew spent literally hundreds of hours working at our site putting our network together. He spent many more hours working on-line at home, often at times of the day most of us "normal" folk would consider "odd." I found out that he knew the hardware, as well as the software. He rebuilt some of our machines; he brought upgrades to our systems; he worked on information security issues with us; he performed trouble-shooting duties; he provided training to us; he was always available as a resource. In November of last year, Andrew brought our homepage up on the Internet (http://library.cottagegrove.org.) By this spring, Andrew had redesigned the look of our homepage and is still changing, adding, and updating informational links. Today our Library 's connection to the Internet is solid, and we probably have done all we can do with the old equipment that we have. In fact, when I meet with other library and technology people, they don't even believe that we've done what we've done. And we've done it all at little or no cost. The question, of course, is why would one person put in such a Herculean effort on a project of this nature. It turns out my friend Andrew believes strongly in the free flow of information and was willing to put in quite an effort so that people in our community can have readily available access to that information. He believes, as I do, that everyone, even those of us in a small rural town in Oregon, should have the same access to information as do the folks in the big cities of our country. Right here in Cottage Grove, through our Library's connection to the Internet, we can reach out to the whole world. Andrew helped make this possible. Did I mention that my friend Andrew is a big person ? It's true, the big guy comes at you with big ideas, big opinions, and big knowledge. However, most of the time, I think of him as a fellow with a big heart. Yes, Andrew epitomizes what just one person can do to help his community. One person volunteering can make a difference. To me that makes him a big hero, my friend, the Library's webmaster, Andrew MacMillen. Dan Kaye is the director of the city's public library. |