Tinkering with tech

Asked who The Beatles were, 6-year-old Samantha Mestas put down a pair of drum sticks and grinned to reveal a space where two front teeth had once been. She shrugged.

"They're from El Salvador, I think," offered her cousin, Josh Rivera, 15, from behind a plastic guitar.

The two young Linda residents and three of their family members had just finished "It's Getting Better," on "The Beatles Rock Band" on the Sony PlayStation 3.

That game, and 25 other computer-oriented products were made available for use by patrons of the Yuba County Library on Tuesday as part of a Technology Petting Zoo.

The one-day event, sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, was intended to give people a comfortable way to familiarize themselves with gadgets like Amazon Kindles, Apple iPhones, Flip video cameras, and Hewlett-Packard Touchsmart computers.

Judy Riggle, 29, of Marysville, guided her son Nathan's hand across the nearly 2-foot wide touch screen of a Hewlett-Packard desktop computer.

It was not as furry as other petting zoo animals the 5-year-old had encountered, but big bright playing cards on a solitaire setup was nice too.

Nathan has started learning about the wonders of the Internet, and soon will need regular access to a computer for his homeschool studies.

Technology skills, said Bob Kruse, 63, "are essential today."

Kruse accompanied his grandkids Carl Mitchell, 9, and Kelly Mitchell, 7, of Loma Rica, who were drawn immediately to a Nintendo Wii sword fighting game, and then to the big HP touch screen computer.

Jack Williams, 67, of Yuba City, sat at a long table with four e-book readers spread before him, and tried them one by one.

"They're just so darned neat," he said of the electronic notebook-style book and periodical readers.

"We're experts now, and we've been here five minutes," he joked.

Printed materials about cost and "how to" tips on experimenting with new technology were among the zoo features.

"I think I like the Kindle best. It's a little less glarey and seems easier to use," he told Andrea Carney, a library technician.

Williams, a retired agriculture researcher, said he's not entirely sold on the concept of reading on a computer screen.

"I really do enjoy going to a bookstore and browsing," he said. "There's a certain tactile thing about it."

When he realized he could get newspapers and magazines electronically, however, he started to reconsider.

Samantha and her family could not get enough of The Beatles, even if the band was not, in fact, from El Salvador.

"I like 'Hey Jude,'" said Rivera. "That's a cool song."

Shortly before Samantha's mom gathered them for departure, they changed instruments and launched into "Here Comes the Sun."

Williams said his next tech purchase is not likely to be a Kindle or other e-book reader. It will be an iPhone.

"My wife wants one," he explained. "She thinks they're cute."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712 or at npasternack@appealdemocrat.com.