[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] SPAM: Belated introduction, and a couple of questions

[Natasha Stephan]

Hi Fred,

I am by no means a Linux guru, but I see that my knowledgeable
colleagues have copies of this O'Reilly book:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxnut5/

I see there's also one on Fedora... which is what I'm currently playing
with.  Hmmm...

Anyway, I rather like the O'Reilly books.  As do "the guys" in my
office.

Welcome!

Natasha

 

________________________________

From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
Fred.King at Medstar.net
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 2:02 PM
To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] SPAM: Belated introduction,and a couple of
questions

 


Gentlemen and Mesdames, 

Greetings, all. I'm Fred King, and I'm one of the medical librarians at
the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. I've actually been
lurking on this list for a few months, ever since my boss talked with
one of the Evergreen folks last year and asked me to look into it. We're
a large urban hospital with a collection of about 8000 books and maybe
twice that number of bound journals. Our monthly circulation sometimes
ventures into the high two figures; we also track in-house use, which is
usually in the low three figures. To put it another way, we don't
exactly tax the capacity of our current ILS. 

Even before our current ILS vendor announced they were making Large
Changes in their product, we were interested in exploring other options;
now I'm looking at all the features offered by the new 'n' improved
system and I'm hearing Ginny Slade saying "Just what we need, a $50,000
car to go to Burger King in." [1] We don't need to catalog books in
Hebrew and Chinese--although we have residents from all over the world,
most of our books are in English. The only items that aren't are some
titles on medical Spanish, and even then, I wasn't expecting a kind of
Spanish acquisition. The change to their new system sounds like a major
expenditure of time and effort, and if we're going to install a new
system *anyway,* we may as well try, or at least look at, something new.
I'm biased in favor of open-source software; I've used OpenOffice.org
for several years, and I like it a lot more than that other office
package. The fact that it fits within my price range [2] is an
additional advantage. 

One problem I foresee with our implementing Evergreen is that, with a
few exceptions, the folks in our IT department don't exactly know where
their towels are. Last month they moved our shared directory to a new
server, and it took four days, a service request, and quite a few
e-mails and phone calls before they set the permissions so we had access
to the folder. It then took another five days, two service requests, and
more e-mails and phone calls before we had access to the files *within*
the folder. So if we're going to be running a Linux server, the person
who's going to be doing it is probably going to be, um, me. That's fine,
since I'm interested in learning a lot more about Linux, but I'll have
to fit it in with my other stuff, such as maintaining two dozen public
computers in the library, being sysadmin (sort of) for our current ILS,
taking care of the online serials [3], being the first-string resource
person for the staff computers and all that runs on them, the
fifth-string backup AV person, keeper of the official statistics,
webmaster, a reference librarian for three hours each day [4], and the
traditional "other duties as required." [5] Oh yes, and on the weekends
when I have the energy and venue, I take my cards and prints around to
local craft shows to sell. All of this may explain why I'm so late with
an introduction, and why I ended up in the emergency room with chest
pains a while back. [6] 

So, if anybody's still reading this, I have a few questions: I've used
Unix shell accounts, and I've installed a couple of varieties of Linux
on machines in the past, but my knowledge is rusty and I've never set up
a server before. I have a few extra computers in my basement that I can
experiment with, as well as a few network hubs, a wireless router, etc.
[7] I also have a book catalog to play around with, if I can figure out
a way to move it to Evergreen from the Microsoft Access version it's
currently in. Since I'm a librarian and book collector, my inclination
is to start with a book. Any recommendations for a good overview? And
what variety of Linux would you recommend for not-quite-but-almost
newbies? 

Thanks, 

Fred King
Medical Librarian, Washington Hospital Center
fred.king at medstar.net 


[1] Updated to account for inflation. 
[2] Free. 
[3] I never wanted to be a serials librarian; I wanted to be a
lumberjack. 
[4] Down from 4.5 before we got another person 
[5] In the theatre, this is known as "verstaility." Here in the library,
we call it "economy." 
[6] Not a heart attack, though nobody knows exactly what's causing it.
Probably iatrogenic. 
[7] At least, I think I do. Right now everything's buried under piles of
stuff for the show on Sunday. 

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