ETC Committee Event: Ubuntu and Linux for Librarians

On November 16, 2007, the Emerging Technologies Committee hosted an event at City College's Cohen Library. Dave Shields, Program Director for the Open Source Software Linux Technology Center, Systems and Technology Group at IBM, gave a talk entitled "Ubuntu and Linux for Librarians." Dr. Shields, an avid blogger who co-wrote Jikes, one of IBM's first open source project, said, "programming is just a form of writing". Dr. Shields is actually a gifted storyteller in the classic sense, able to bring life to any point to life with an apt anecdote.

His discussion dealt with open document formats and their practical and cultural impact on our future as libraries and citizens.

Dave Shields (center) with Daisy Dominguez and Steve Ovadia

During his discussion, he asked librarians to consider the fact that twenty years ago, a five megabyte disk drive cost $5,000 and now a 1 terabyte hard drive may go for under $300. Meanwhile, used to cost $200 and still does. He discussed the dual synergy of the Internet, mostly made using open source software, HTML, and shared documents. Without monetizing it, anyone is able to contribute.

On education, Dr. Shields said, "the great tragedy of personal computer is that all the money went into making games rather than into education." He is due to receive a laptop from the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative which uses the open-source Ubuntu platform.

Telling us about victims of Hurricane Katrina who were unable to request aid via forms that could only be viewed via Internet Explorer, Dr. Shields discussed the importance of open, non-proprietary formats for libraries of the future to be able to access documents.

Noting how a well-placed blog title will make it to the top of the search results of what

he called "the world's library," Google, Dr. Shields discussed the notion of authority and what it means in today and tomorrow's world. He is also concerned with those things left unsaid and how it will impact history and our collective remembrance of events.

During the question and answer session, Dr. Shields discussed open source products such as Open Office and IBM's Lotus Symphony. We're very excited that Dave wrote his talk up on his November 17, 2007 blog entry at: http://daveshields.wordpress.com/

Additional photos and notes can be found here.

Steve Ovadia (LaGuardia) and Daisy Dominguez (City College)