GULF SHORES, Ala. — While the downward spiraling economy is a bad thing for many businesses and individuals across the country, it has resulted in an enhancement at the Thomas B. Norton Library in Gulf Shores.

The library will be receiving a $1,500 Library Services and Technology grant to purchase video conferencing equipment. The grant is an effort to offset cost involved in quarterly library director’s meetings.

“The state traditionally has library directors travel to Montgomery every quarter for director’s meetings,” explained library director Wendy Congiardo. “Everything being like it is with the economy, they’ve come up with a grant opportunity.”

The grant gives each library $1,500 to purchase a computer with video conferencing capability to help alleviate the travel expenses of going to and from Montgomery four times per year.

Congiardo traveled to Mobile to participate in a teleconference, and the meeting was well received. With leftover grant money, individual libraries are now applying for the grant that will give them the opportunity to stay home yet still be part of the meetings.

“It is my understanding that any library that applies for the grant and gets their paperwork in on time will receive the grant,” Congiardo said.

While the new equipment will primarily be used for the quarterly directors meetings, Congiardo said that possibly the Mac desktop computer could be used for other reasons; but for right now, it would strictly be used for the library directors meetings.

This program is a spin-off of the program where certain libraries were given grants to purchase computers for video conferences between members of the military stationed abroad and their families back home.

“That program really started this whole thing, but we were not included in that grant,” Congiardo said. “The state basically picked who they gave it to and we were not included in that grant. They gave one to Fairhope and one to Orange Beach, probably with the idea that Orange Beach was a little closer to Pensacola where there are many military families.”

Congiardo hopes that in the future, such a machine can be placed in the computer lab of the library and used regularly for video conferencing by anyone who needed that technology.