“Nearly five years ago, Central High School’s alumni set out to raise $100,000 to give the school’s Barnwell Library fresh paint, carpeting and furniture. A few alumni, though, had grander dreams,” Martha Woodall reports for The Philadelphia Inquirer. “This afternoon, alumni and school officials will unveil what they call their ‘wow library’ – a new communications, research and media facility that Apple Computer Inc. has named a national demonstration site for school-library technology. Central graduates picked up the project’s $4.5 million tab.”
The new facility features 70 Apple wireless laptops and 70 Apple desktop computers along with many other improvements.
Full article (free registration required) here.
$4.5 million for 140 machines…
*shocked*
Hey, MDN, at least warn us when the link is to a registration-required site! Especially one that demands your full name, address and birthdate!
In other news, Gannett Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, recently added 16 MB of RAM to its Power Macintosh 7200.
I’m sure some of that costs go for a building or remodeling of a building, wires, servers, xraids, tech people for a year of building, and don’t forget the digitizing of books and the people to scan in those books. All of it costs money, and time is money, and it will take time to make this happen.
the 4.5 million was for the WHOLE project, not just for 70 computers. Had you read the article, you would have found that they basically gutted the building and redid the whole thing, including adding balconies, lounges, archives, conference rooms and the like.
The tech from Apple was a small cost in an otherwise impressive renovation. According to one person associated with the project, “It’s the premier place to work in Philadelphia as a librarian […] The library will be a portal to all the knowledge that’s out there.”
Of course, I meant 70 desktops and 70 laptops…
Try http://www.bugmenot.com next time you run across a site that asks for personal information.
And in today’s news, 70 iMac G5’s and 70 iBooks have been reported stolen from Philadelphia’s Central High School.
(OJ, writing from the corner of 17th and JFK Blvd.)
How is this news? Do PC sites report everytime Dell makes a sale? For christ’s sake, MDN, publish interesting stories, not an Apple sales tally.
And in other news, Apple owned 15% of the education market 10 years ago. Now they jump for joy (or maybe thats MDN jumping) when they get a 140 unit sale.
In other news, Gannett Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, recently added 16 MB of RAM to its Power Macintosh 7200.
Computers in Arkansas.. that’s funny..!
For christ’s sake, “stantheman”, SHUT THE HELL UP!! God, I’m sick of the whiners who post that they don’t like the stories. THEN DON’T READ THEM! Do you have the self-control of a hamster or something? Sheesh.
No, looks like he doesn’t. Can’t even stop himself from clicking a link that doesn’t interest him.
That’s what the {head}-in-the-sand knee-jerk world of Windows conformity is like, folks
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“the {head}-in-the-sand knee-jerk world of Windows conformity” (don’t even know what exactly that means) may be a bit tedious at times, but you’d be hard pressed to find many articles on how Bob Smith of Dell Computer just finallized a sales order of 140 computers.
And yes, as an avid reader of MDN, I have every right to comment on a story that’s just plain crap. Just like you have every right to label me a conformist (remind me again why I am one).
Stan,
U answered your own question. It IS news because it is unexpected, somewhat surprising, and therefore, of interest. A school buying 140 Dells is NOT unexpected, and therefore, of no interest.
whopeee! Somebody bought 140 computers.
So beside the computers being Apples, what’s of interest here? The fact that alumni raised so much money to upgrade the library? Yes.
That there are Macintosh computers there? Well, that’s nice. But shouldn’t _some_ school choose a Mac one in a while?