Students in five new middle schools next year will have the opportunity to use the World Wide Web and other multimedia sources.

Acting Education Permanent Secretary Harrichand Sukdeo yesterday said the link-up will allow the schools to locate reference material and controlled access to information on the Web via the Internet.

Bermuda Business Systems and the Education Ministry plan to have the "state-of-the-art'' computer network system installed at Sandys Secondary, Warwick Secondary, Northlands Secondary, Whitney Institute, and St. George's Secondary by September next year when they are expected to be middle schools.

The library network was developed in connection with Bermuda Business Systems Limited.

BSL provided network design, implementation and project management services while finding additional components from local distributors including IBM, Digital, Gateway and Hewlett Packard.

Dylinx Library Systems, the world leader in library cataloguing software, is designing the software.

Mr. Sukedo, who is the comptroller for the Education Department, said: "The libraries have been designed with the school's future in mind. The systems and network we have put in place will both handle current requirements and can be easily expanded for the addition of new schools, students, projects and applications.'' The Education Ministry considered numerous options before accepting the BSL's proposal.

"We chose this system design because of its flexibility,'' Mr. Sukdeo explained. "It is designed to be adaptable to our needs both now and in the future.'' BSL general manager Steve Pozzobon said: "This project is possible because of cooperation and teamwork between the Department of Education, BSL and other hardware providers.

"It is very satisfying to be part of delivering such a powerful educational tool to our students and to do it both on time and cost effectively.''