I am in my 70’s and seriously deaf yet much want to work the internet. I do not have my own computer but go to the library in the hope that I can pick up how to initiate it. Is it possible for you to give me a step by step instruction guide to the internet please so that I can take it with me simply pressing the keys? Many Thanks.

As daunting as it may seem accessing the internet from the library isn’t. Below is a 1 to 7 guide on how to access the internet and to search it for points of interest.

1. You will need to book the internet terminal for a certain time. Go to the librarian’s desk and ask if you could book the internet (you will need to be a member of the ACT Library Service to do this, I assume you are) NB: The terminals get VERY heavily booked. I suggest you go early in the morning or ring up before hand to ensure you get a spot.

2. Once you are at the terminal you should be confronted with a page that has the ACT Library Service logo on it. If not, using the mouse, click on the ‘Home’ button which will be found in the bar at the top of the screen. If you click it and you end up at the same page or another don’t panic, go on to the next step. If you do not see any buttons or a bar with something like ‘http://something.somewhere.com’ then someone has more that likely closed the internet browser which you need to open to access websites. If this is the case ask a librarian for assistance.

3. The next thing you will want to do is to search the internet for something of interest. In the address bar at the top of the screen (which is white with writing such as something.somewhere.com in it) click it once, and delete all of the text in it. Then type in: www.altavista.com. Altavista is a very good search engine for the internet.

4. You may need to wait a few seconds for the page to load. Once it has, you should see a page with a title graphic that says ‘Altavista’ and below it there will be an orange rectangle with a white text box in it. Click that text box once, type in what you would like to search for, and click the ‘Search’ button. (If a box comes up that says something like this information is insecure and anyone can read it just click the ‘Continue’ or ‘OK’ button) eg. If you wanted to search for how to make a wooden box you could type in ‘Making wooden boxes’. On the other hand you could also enter in a natural language search eg. How can I make a wooden box? (Although you will find these are a lot less accurate).

5. After you’ve pressed the ’search’ button another page will come up in a few seconds with matches for your search. Many sites (depending on your search) will come up. The page is organised so websites that are relevant to your search are displayed with the title of that page first, a small description of that site, then the full internet address of the site. If you want to view a certain site you just click on the title of the page you are interested in. The title will be in blue writing (or another colour depending on the configuration of the computer) and underlined. When you click it you will be transported to that site. These are what we call ‘Hotlinks’.

6. Another very good place to go is www.yahoo.com (follow instructions in point 3 to access the site). Yahoo is a search engine but it also has many addresses of websites already in its database.

7. When you are at the Yahoo site there should be a big graphic up the top that says ‘YAHOO!’. In the white text box you can enter in what you want to search for (like you did in Altavista) or if you scroll down the page some more by clicking the down arrow in the near bottom right-hand corner of the screen with your mouse, you can click any of the blue, underlined words to bring up sites on that subject (there may be subcategories in the main categories as well).

I hope that this guide helps you navigate the internet easily and provides you with interesting moments. If you have any more questions about it please feel free to contact me again.