Discovery Center adds videoconferencing, training

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The Discovery Center, 438 St. Louis, is known as a place where children and their parents can learn hands-on about such wonders as science and history. |ret||ret||tab|

But now, the 4-year-old Discovery Center also is becoming a place where business leaders can rent equipment to teach and train their employees.|ret||ret||tab|

The Center has a 2,000-square-foot computer lab with 10 work stations that can be rented. |ret||ret||tab|

The computers in the lab are all Dell Dimension 4300s. |ret||ret||tab|

There's also a color laser printer and two CD recordable drives. The computer equipment can stay in the lab or it can be moved to other places in the building, according to Charlotte McCoy, marketing director for the Discovery Center.|ret||ret||tab|

The Discovery Center also offers vid-eoconferencing equipment for businesses to rent.|ret||ret||tab|

"Videoconferencing is the new wave of communications," McCoy said. "It's cheaper than traveling to another city." |ret||ret||tab|

The videoconferencing equipment in-cludes a Polycom FX camera, a television with Super-Video capabilities and speakers. |ret||ret||tab|

The Discovery Center received an Institute of Museum and Library Ser-vices grant for $180,000. Among other things, the grant paid for the Virtual Li-brarian, which links Discovery Center visitors to the Library Center, and for the salary for Fawn Houck, the Discovery Center's Web site coordinator. |ret||ret||tab|

The center's Web site is found at www.discoverycenter.org.|ret||ret||tab|

An employee of the Discovery Center accompanies the equipment renters to help answer questions, McCoy said.|ret||ret||tab|

The computer lab has set hours for Discovery Center visitors such as student groups to use the equipment Mc-Coy said. Reservations by businesses for equipment rental must be made two weeks in advance. |ret||ret||tab|

A nonrefundable deposit is due with the reservation. The videoconferencing equipment is available only for rental and is not part of the center's general-use displays. The cost of renting the auditorium and the foyer for the purpose of using the videoconferencing equipment is $200 for two hours and $50 for each additional hour.|ret||ret||tab|

The cost of renting the auditorium and foyer and a satellite feed is $150 for two hours and $50 for each additional hour.|ret||ret||tab|

Renting the auditorium and foyer with the computer lab or the videoconferencing equipment is $200 for two hours and $50 for each additional hour. To rent all three the foyer, computer lab and vid-eoconferencing equipment is $250 an hour with $75 for each extra hour.[[In-content Ad]]