November 19, 1998

Contact:
Press Contact: Yvonne French (202) 707-9191
School contact: Principal Valoria E. Baylor (202) 645-3440

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MEDIA ADVISORY:
LIBRARY TO DONATE $34,000 IN COMPUTERS AND OTHER MATERIALS TO
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Equipment Replaces Stolen Items

WHO: Deputy Librarian of Congress Donald Scott

WHAT: Will tour classrooms where the Library has installed its surplus computers and address a Head Start-fifth grade musical assembly celebrating "American Education Week"

WHEN: Friday, November 20 9 a.m.: tour of classrooms 9:30 a.m.: three-minute address at beginning of assembly

WHERE: Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, Sixth St. and Alabama Ave. S.E.

WHY: Burglars stole computer equipment from the school the weekend of October 17-18

HOW: The Library is donating surplus equipment to the school under President George Bush's 1992 Executive Order 12821 improving math and science education and amended by President Bill Clinton in 1996 as Executive Order 12999 ensuring educational technology opportunities.

BACKGROUND:

The Library of Congress has donated $6 million in computer equipment since 1994, mostly to schools in the District, Maryland and Virginia, but also as far away as Montana. The Library is currently working on a donation of equipment to a school in California's Mojave Desert.

The donation to Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School marks the second time the Library has donated equipment to a school that has been vandalized. The first was in 1994 to Scott Montgomery Elementary School in the District.

At Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School on the weekend of October 17-18, vandals broke into the school and took four computers, seven televisions, 17 VCRs, two musical keyboards, three CD players and a tape recorder and damaged seven televisions.

The Library is donating a fax machine, 10 personal computers and color monitors, four correcting electric typewriters and six cases of carpet tiling. The value of the donation is $34,000.

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PR 98-190
11/19/98
ISSN 0731-3527