This is a simple homepage for the "Getting Free and Open Source Software in Libraries HOWTO" or FOSSLib HOWTO for short. It is based on the pioneering work done in Scotland by Bob Kerr. He's kindly let me take over its maintenance, because I want to see this used to put good software in every library.
This page was updated on 26 Jan 2004.
This edition is still not really ready, but it is available as online xhtml (look at this first), example cover and chart (OO.org) and DocBook XML Source. Details of how to access the development version will appear here soon, but please email me improvements or comments. You can get the original document that this project is based on from the OO.org issue tracker.
Bob Kerr's work has had some really good coverage in the press. I'll list it here when I get some time.
I'd love some help in taking this further. Right now, a list of links to press articles, set out as an xhtml dl-list, would be ideal. The format is roughly:
<dl> <dt><a href="url">The Article Title As Published</a></dt> <dd>Where it was published, who wrote it and a very short summary</dd> ...more... </dl>
My next moves will be to make the development version available to you, to start cataloguing press coverage and to start a table listing work done so far. Sorry that I'm not comfortable using OpenOffice for distributed authoring, but hopefully it can import the docbook version to produce "glossy" versions later.
A mailing list will appear next week. Please email me if you want to be on it when it starts. (The delay is because of a small glitch with my mailing lists.)