Welland Public Library is lending its support to a worldwide network of scientists working on understanding and possibly treating the COVID-19 virus.

Twenty of its public-use computers have been added to the folding@home project, said Norm Dashwood, the library's manager of information technology and systems.

The project helps process research workloads that aid scientists in understanding - and eventually finding treatments for - diseases and viruses. Various forms of cancers, infectious and neurological diseases are three of the areas focused on.

And it's now assisting researchers around the world in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Each computer that runs their software allocates its computing resource, allowing for an incredible amount of data to be processed. It's similar to the seti@home project that aids in processing radio data from space," said Dashwood.

Hooking up and into the network was easy.

"It was just a matter of installing their software and configuring it to use the maximum amount of processing power."

Dashwood said the computers in the library are being used 24/7 to help process data from the project and contribute to finding treatments.

"We are just a small piece in a very large distributed computing network - but every little bit helps. Based on the statistics available from the project site, there are upwards of a million computers participating in this network."

Dashwood said the network is processing trillions of math operations per second.

The idea to join folding@home came from the County of Brant Public Library and Barrie Public Library who had both posted they were participating in the project.

"When we saw this, it immediately struck us as a great way that we could contribute during this challenging time."

Dashwood said he and library chief executive officer Julianne Brunet discussed the idea and agreed that it was a great use of underused resources during the library's closure.