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Library-in-a-Box, Bess Sadler
1 Mar 07
Library-in-a-Box
Bess Sadler
eIFL-FOSS
eIFL’s mission is to lower barriers to information in the developing world
– do not give out money
– negotiate with publishers
– library consortium building
– open access advocacy
– IP subgroup – represent developing countries at WIPO
– knowledge sharing
– OSS for libraries
Library-in-a-box
– follows the Tactical Technology Collective NGO-in-a-box model
– easily distributed, easily installed ILS
– need to build a community before you write a line of code
– sustainable model, implementing libraries rely on each other for support (source-camp model)
– leap-frog: better to create a high-quality, next-gen product
Benefits for eIFL libraries
– financial savings obvious; also keeping local currency local
– building in-house, in-country expertise
– for many, it’s their only option
Current activities
– business plan (Open Business Readiness Rating)
– recruiting country coordinators
– appliying for funding, building partnerships/community
– choosing pilot sites
– later this year contracting for software development
will be returned to open source community, conceivably of benefit to global community; not aiming to be best of breed, but may contribute to that development
Posted by pzed on March 1, 2007 at 3.11pm
Categories: code4lib 2007, conferences, libraries
