[Novalug] Call your local public library to see if they have a Linux CD you can sign out

Walt Smith waltechmail@yahoo.com
Mon May 13 11:44:41 EDT 2013


A few years ago ( 5-7 ), Baltimore County had a routine of
pulling CD's that came in a linux book.  


I asked.


They claimed they couldn't lend them to you.


But at least they were getting some linux books.  
They also  kept many of them for many years on 
the shelf.   Some were more than 5 years
old. An artifact of our hi tech society.  so when RH 
9 was out they still might have RH 4.2 books.


If anyone starts asking, know that most local library 
employees follow instructions and don't make
policy.  Sometimes one of the administrators 
( paperwork person, not IT  admin) will
know a little something.

I do believe from previous experiences that Baltimore 
County libraries have somewhat political policies- not 
totally free and open.   They tend to work hard to 
straddle some imaginary line in the political, legal and free
system.   This is a shame.  Our own laws have very much 
restricted our rights to information.  Case in point: look
at the software libraries don't have for lending (I'm not arguing
the code isn't available over the net... that's not the point ).
Baltimore County still has a "no download" policy if you
use their onsite PC's.  You can D/L w/ wifi onto your own pc though.

I'd like to see taxpayer supported colleges 
be more accessible in how they lend books to
public libraries.   OTOH ( contra point ), I once
got a decent Linux Sys admin book thru the library:
it was sent from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburg at 
no cost to me.

I'm one of those that still likes paper.

If the free/open source movement could help free up
libraries, that would be a  great contribution to
society, but I don't know how it could be done.


W......

-----------------------
From:
"Phil Shapiro" <pshapiro@his.com>
To:
"novalug " <novalug@calypso.tux.org>
Hi novalug members,

   In my open source advocacy talk, I forgot to mention that we should each call our local public library to find out if they have a Linux CD we can sign out to try. Libraries will never loan out Linux CD's unless the public asks for them.  Yes, you can call your public library once a week. At some point they'll get the message.  After you call them, they can never say that nobody is asking for Linux CD's. 

     This is particularly relevant in light of this PCWorld magazine blog post I wrote -

 http://www.pcworld.com/article/228987/does_free_software_restory_dignity.html

http://tinyurl.com/b53enwl

               phil

-- 
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