I was sorry to miss the NELA-ITS workshop on Open Source Software last week. But, thanks to the wonders of the internets, I did get some of the content. Particularly fascinating to me was Randy Robertshaw’s presentation on using open source software solutions on all library computers. Now, I’ve long thought this was an interesting idea, especially considering my deep admiration and sympathy for our country’s underfunded and underappreciated small and rural libraries. And he’s not the first to try it, of course.

But I wonder, as I have before, if it’s shortsighted of us to consider ‘investment’ in financial terms only. When I’m off talking to libraries about my own pet open-source solution I’m very careful to point out that this is not free. It’s simply a reapplication of resources and so often what you might be saving in money is going to be balanced by staff-time, attention, training. A web2.0 compatible online web presence, for example, is interactive. It’s not the kind of old-school website that you set up and then essentially abandon save for the occasional update. It needs nurturing every day, or it will die, like a chia pet. (I’ve always wanted a chia pet.)

In Randy’s case, I wonder if, while putting exclusively open source software on his public access computers seems to save his library money, even with a company doing the OS maintenance. Is he risking unfairly shifting the ‘expense’ to his patrons by giving them tools that they’re unfamiliar with? Yet another way that libraries make their constituents feel stupid and intimidated?

Imagine an elder walking into the library because they need to conduct some business online and have no computer of technical infrastructure at home – but they do know how to use a computer, their kind and patient grandchild showed them. But the grandchild has a pc, as most would. So this person sits down in front of Ubuntu and is completely flummoxed. They don’t ask for help. They don’t have the orientation to puzzle it out. They simply leave, unserviced. I know it’s an anecdotal example, but a fair concern in my opinion.

I don’t mean to suggest that it’s not a fantastic idea, but I do wonder how libraries who do it safeguard against such dis-service.