[OPLINTECH] public software foundation

[Nathan Eady]

Ed Liddle <eliddle at marysvillelib.org> writes:

> They are trying to get Free and Open Source Software on library
> shelves.

I have found that a lot of the time, people who are trying to get
certain things on library shelves are doing so because they are under
the impression that having something on the library shelves will
create a popular demand and/or appreciation for it.  But they have the
cause and effect switched around: the truth is, if there is a popular
demand and/or appreciation for something, that's what gets it on the
library shelves.  The other way around doesn't work so well -- we have
several times had things go into our collection because somebody
bought a salesman's line, and lots of circulation was never the
result.  

Vanity press authors email me all the time, suggesting that the
library should buy their books, but the last thing we want is to fill
our shelves with books that our patrons don't have any particular
desire to read.  This seems to me like the same kind of dynamic.

> The plus side to this type of software is a patron can install it,
> copy it, give it to their friends, etc without committing a
> copyright violation or breaking a license agreement.

If you have a collection of software installation discs for lending,
will patrons understand why you don't have the specific titles they're
looking for, which are very popular, but which it's _not_ legal for
them to do those things with (and in a lot of cases probably not
really possible either, given the sorts of protections it tends to
have, like activation and such)?  Wouldn't you get a steady stream of
requests for Microsoft Windows installation disks, from people who
have lost their OEM ones and need to reinstall, not to mention MS
Office and Symantec AV and such?

Additionally, people who would *want* open-source software generally
have internet access and could just download it.  I'm not convinced
there would be a significant patron demand for, say, OpenOffice.org
installation disks.  We have limited space, so why would we add
materials to the collection that we do not expect would circulate?
What our patrons *would* want from us is stuff they *can't* easily
download for free, because it's _not_ free (in either sense), and
having a software collection that does not include it would likely
aggravate that.

We use a lot of open-source software in the library, both for staff
and on the patron systems, but I'm not at *all* sure I'd want to open
the software-in-the-lending-collection can of worms.

If we had a lot of patrons with computers but no internet access, I
might look at this rather differently.  But we don't.  (We do have a
fair number of patrons with no computer, but what good would software
installation discs do them?)

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library