[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Open Source Time and Print Management

[Bill Ott]

We wrote our own time management system back in the late 90's and have 
been using it ever since.  The source is available, but we don't have 
much info about it.  You're better off Googling for "Internet Station 
Manager" and looking for items regarding the Grand Rapids Public 
Library.  It of course authenticates patrons against Evergreen.  Here's 
the source:
http://code.google.com/p/grpl-ism/

We also use LPRng and a handful of scripts to manage print jobs.  Any 
machine, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc...  sends a Postscript job to a custom 
hold queue, where we parse it for the job name and number of pages.  
 From there, we estimate the cost based on the number of pages and it 
can be released for printing, or we use Ghost Script's ps2pdf to crate a 
PDF suitable for saving or email.



David Fiander wrote:
> Time management is tricky. There are probably ways of doing it, but it
> will be complicated.
>
> If you are thinking about migrating your public internet PCs away from
> Windows to Linux, then printing will require some development, but not
> as much as time management.
>
> Because the Linux printer subsystem is built from the ground up to
> support networked printer servers, the PCs can all be configured to
> submit their printer jobs to a central server very easily. It would
> only take a little bit of programming to enable associating print jobs
> with individual library users. The internet terminals would probably
> not need to know anything about ILS accounts or anything like that. If
> the system was built properly, it would probably even be possible to
> enable users to print to the public printers from their own laptops on
> the wireless network.
>
> The challenging part would be charging. The printer release station
> would require some custom software to either handle a printer debit
> card system (which is common in academic settings) or adding a charge
> to the patrons record in the ILS, and then releasing the job to the
> printer.
>