[plug] PLUG Library

[David Dartnall]

Adrian Woodley wrote:
> 
>>> The first is that we increase the actual stock the library carries - 
>>> which
>>> at the moment consists of some relatively out of date books and some
>>> CDs/DVDs. The main problem I see with this is expenditure - since 
>>> we're a
>>> volunteer organisation with minimal income I don't see how we can 
>>> purchase
>>> materials on a regular basis so too keep 'up-to-date'. For example, I 
>>> saw a
>>> great book on Ubuntu 8.10 in Boffins the other day, but it was $75. Does
>>> PLUG really have that the money to be buying copies of it? An 
>>> alternative to
>>> buying books is to perhaps organise some kind of sponsorship program 
>>> where
>>> books are materials are donated.
>>>     
>>
>> Grants from people like Linux Australia are possible, or sponsorship
>> from local business. It does become a problem if the books rapidly
>> become out of date, though. I like having some form of physical
>> library, but perhaps this could just be restricted to pressed copies
>> of the latest Ubuntu release, and whatever books we have at the
>> moment.
> 
> I definitely agree that paper copies are a pretty useless medium for 
> computer books, in particular those about Linux. The technology moves so 
> fast that anything currently in print is almost certainly out of date to 
> some extent.
> 
> A much more valuable pool of resources could be hardware, both for 
> members to borrow (take home) and to use online (servers, etc). The 
> server side is (or has been) partly covered but I believe it could be 
> heavily re-vamped and become much more useful, with a little effort and 
> a modest cash injection. As far as take-home gear goes, this could 
> include things such as switches and routers, video and sound equipment, 
> fast/large computers and storage, even cheap robot platforms; anything 
> which someone may need for research, study or just to mess around with 
> an idea, but can't afford or otherwise doesn't have access to.
> 
> This would be a fairly challenging undertaking - some of the gear would 
> be largely pointless unless kept relatively up to date (Moore's Law). 
> Some of it could be quiet expensive and suitable tracking (and possibly 
> recovery) would need to be put in place. Other stuff could be a bit more 
> "commodity"; old cisco routers and switches are still good enough to 
> study a CCNA/CCNP on, a couple of 500G SATA drives could be enough to 
> store your RAID array while you rebuild it.
> 
> The most difficult part would be deciding what to obtain in the first 
> place.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Adrian (the other one).

I agree that books become redundant very quickly.
However I have a copy of 'Beginning Ubuntu Linux from Novice to 
Professional' by Keir Thomas which the library is welcome to if you want 
it. "Included CD" is breezy which is indeed old, but there's a lot in it 
which would apply currently. 573 pages!

regards
Dave Dartnall