Needed: GNU/Linux intro course ideas

[Sean]

I would definately pose the question, "Where is _your_ money going?" Can
you stretch your money farther for the same service? Can you pool your
resources? I mean problems that exist for librarians tend to be the same
whether they are in Lansing or wherever. 

I would stay out of the ESR cathedral and bizarre types of political spew. 
I would discuss licensing. I would bring up development. Any open source
projects on the web that would be relevent? Things they could try right
off the bat? I mean people helping people and sharing knowledge is really
what being a librarian is about, matter of fact I would start and finish
with the people helping people to share knowledge, and broaden ones
knowledgebase to help spurn ideas and to encourage open standards.

I dont think you necessarily have to fire up Gimp, but I would show them
several user interfaces, and some programs, expecially databases and front
ends, ineternet kiosk type of configurations, netboot stuff and shared
configuration with NIS, etc. 

And integration with their existing NT and Mac systems. I a kind of try it
before you buy into it type of way. 

I guess I dont see why someone couldnt package a Linux dist for Libraries. 


On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, Mark Szidik wrote:
> 
> The attendees will be a diverse group - library directors to reference
> to tech staff from public, corporate, medical and academic libraries.
> 
> This got started because there is a new commercial product out in
> library land called WebExpress. It runs only on Solaris and Linux.  Our
> staff have heard from librarians that they are afraid of it and want to
> wait till there is an NT version.
> 
> <rant>
> This is awful to hear since the product (written in Java) is installed
> and completely administered from a web interface, so there is no
> difference between platforms.  In general libraries get scared when they
> hear unix or linux.  (Even though most of their library systems run some
> flavor of unix.  The vendors try to hide the fact by creating Win
> clients and complex admin menus and not giving shell access.)
> </rant>
> 
> 
> To summarize I am doing this to get librarians interested in Open
> Source.  What they do with it is up to them. (of course I'll try to help
> them figure it out).
> 
> 
> -Mark
>