Next Page with Categories on Pages (not posts)

I am new to PHP and wordpress, but getting better everyday…

I am trying to setup a page that pulls posts based on the category and displays them on as many pages as needed. There is a catch. I am “splitting” the single page into 2 columns. I can set the number of posts to display on a page using:

<?php $recent = new WP_Query("cat=576&showposts=5"); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();?>

I am also using the same text for the second column with the “offset” attribute. The “showposts” attribute allows me to set it to whatever number, but ideally I want it to display them all with about 5 posts to a column using the same pageing functionality as when you click on a category link.

Any ideas??