Inmates at Carroll County's Detention Center can catch up with the computer-literate world thanks to a federal grant that will enable the public library to teach them basic computer skills.

"There's lots and lots of proof that money spent on education while incarcerated is money saved," said Lauren Keppel, the detention center's librarian of three years. "They're much more likely not to come back."

The library applied for and was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Division of Library Development Services, a branch of the state Department of Education. The department had federal money allotted for public library projects. The money will be available for fiscal 2003, which will begin July 1.

The grant will pay for six new Gateway computers and four-week classes, which will be taught by Tammi Bien, an employment consultant and basic computer skills instructor employed by the county's Business Employment Resource Center.

Classes will begin this summer, and the goal is to teach inmates basic computer skills and how to create a resume.

"We're all about building the economic base," said library director Linda Mielke. "If you have a record, it's hard enough to get a job, but if you have computer skills you can be a contributing member of society."

Keppel, 52, a former teacher's aide in a Vermont state prison, said inmates have among the highest per capita checkout and return rates of library materials in the county. The public library system, which has five branches in the county, also maintains a 3,000-volume facility at the Westminster detention center.

That enthusiasm for books and materials made Keppel think the inmates would be willing to learn computer skills.

"It always amazed me that people who are quite young, who you expect would have had experience with computers, have backed off of them, intimidated," said Keppel. "People have missed a whole step in becoming adults by not knowing how to navigate a computer.

"Computers represent the divide in our society between the haves and have-nots. If they could get a little bit of confidence, they would be able to help themselves, go to the library and look at employment sites."

Bien's curriculum includes teaching four to six inmates for two hours twice a week the components of a computer and training them on operating systems, word processing basics and using the Internet for job resources. By the end of the class, the inmates should be able to write resumes.

"Every job utilizes computers in one facet or another," said Bien. "If it sparks an interest and they'd like to consider expanding their horizons, then that's a success for me."

The detention center has one computer terminal - set up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service - to allow undocumented immigrant detainees to look up immigration laws on a computer disk.

The federal government pays the county to house the detainees until they are deported.