"If only I would have had this service 30 years ago," commented a retired patron as he watched Manager Jim Miller show a young job-seeker how to navigate JobView, a new touch-screen kiosk housed in the reading room on the main floor of the Midtown Carnegie Branch Library.

"The older gentleman would not be needing the kiosk now, but he spent his life trying to find good work for his family and he knew that this ATM-style device would have been something wonderful to have back then," said Miller.

Certainly there are plenty of area men and women who will make good use of JobView now, said Kathy Shatto of the Missouri Career Center. She says about 2,500 people in the Ozarks region have been laid-off, downsized or have lost their jobs due to company closures within the past six months.

This project, the first JobView kiosk in a Missouri library, was funded through a Community Block Development grant using federal, state and local money. "This is a demonstration project that we hope to expand to other libraries in the state," said Shatto. "Public libraries are the ideal location to access employment information and I am so pleased at how staff at the Springfield-Greene County Library District enthusiastically embraced the idea of a job kiosk."

JobView is designed to be simple to use for those with limited knowledge of computers.

"The touch screen makes the big difference. Everything is right in front of you," said Miller. "You hit Missouri on the map and a list of cities comes up. Touch Springfield and you will find 20 or 30 categories, such as food service, medical, technology, construction, listed. Choose a category and a list of jobs in the Springfield area comes up. Touch the job that interests you and you can print out the job description and information about where you can apply. If you can read, you can do it."

Jobs are updated daily, there's no registration or login procedure, and the kiosk complements the more extensive Missouri Career Center's website, missouricareersource.com. You can also reach MissouriCareerSource through thelibrary.org. Click on Infolink, link to Employment on the left side of the page and scroll down to the site.