Koha support from the folks at LibLime

Posted on by jessamyn

Are you open-source-curious but reluctant to move to a product without built in support? The folks at LibLime want to help make the move to open source library systems easier and less fraught with peril. They sell and support their own version of Koha [yes one of those features is spell-check, do I have your attention now?] as well as an intranet product which enables blogging, photo sharing, and web site updating. If you must filter, they’ve got an open-source answer to that too. I’m still in the data-collection phase learning about LibLime but Koha is a tested dependable ILS and now that there is a supported version, I’d love to see more people jumping on the bandwagon.

The Infinite Library

Posted on by jessamyn

While you’re on a reading kick today, curl up with this article: The Infinite Library, a very interesting look at some of the possible unintended consequences of the large-scale digitization projects that Google, and others but mostly Google, are undertaking. Some good quotes from Brewster Kahle and some interesting discussion about DRM. Jared has a few other thoughts on it. As an additional bonus, here is the author’s blog post about the article he wrote.

Kahle argues that all digital library materials should be as freely and openly accessible as physical library materials are now. That’s not such a radical idea; free and open access is exactly what public libraries, as storehouses of printed books and periodicals, have traditionally provided. But the very fact that digital files are so much easier to share than physical books … could lead to limits on redistribution that prevent libraries from giving patrons as much access to their digital collections as they would like. “Google has brought us to a tipping point that could define how access to the world’s literature may proceed,” Kahle says.

[link’o’day]