Core Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group

Creative Ideas in Technical Services Discussion Group

ALA Annual Conference 2010

Table 7

Free like a beer? Or free like a puppy? : Open Source Tools for Technical Services

The questions listed below are simply suggestions for guiding and structuring your conversation.  You needn’t feel compelled to use the list or to cover all of the questions.  Don’t hesitate to consider other, better questions that may come up during your conversation.  

• Do you currently use any open source software to complete technical services tasks? Which ones?

• Are there any open source tools that you would like to use but don’t?

• How can open source software improve your ability to perform important tasks?

• Thinking about the tools that you currently use or have heard of, are open source tools for technical services free like a beer or free like a puppy?  How much does the user need to understand and/or tweak to use them effectively?

• If you had the skills to design and share a tool to make your job easier, what would it do?  Do you think it would be popular?

• What open source integrated library systems are you aware of?  Do you think that the average library could manage and benefit from using one of them?

• Do you prefer to use open source tools or would you rather use proprietary software?  Would you consider paying a vendor to support your use of an open source system?