Technically Speaking

David DormanBy David Dorman
American Libraries Columnist
ddorma@ltnet.ltls.org

Library consultant for the Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign, Illinois.

Column for December 2002

Taking the Wireless Network Plunge

Is wireless in your future? If you are in an academic library, the answer is likely to be yes. But if you are in a public library you may not have thought much about the possibilities of a wireless network. Think again.

A number of public libraries recently announced they have taken the wireless plunge. One of them is the newly renovated Ponte Vedra branch of the St. Johns County Public Library System, headquartered in St. Augustine, Florida, whose wireless network debuted in August.

“We want to enable our patrons to use electronic resources with the same freedom they use print resources in the library—reclining in a chair of their choice or wherever they happen to be,” explained Sol Hirsch, the library system’s assistant director, when asked why the system chose to install the wireless network. The community is relatively upscale, so many patrons already have portable computers. For these patrons the library is loaning out wireless network cards for in-house use. For patrons who do not own portable PCs, the library will circulate laptops with wireless connections built in for in-library use.

Access to the wireless network is limited to browser-based Web services for security reasons. The range, even with a booster antenna, is limited to no more than 200 feet from the antenna. The separate DSL circuit that the library uses for the network costs $60 per month (after the e-rate discount is applied). Capital costs, outside of the laptop computers purchased, consisted of a few hundred dollars for the access point and $45 each for the wireless network cards. Wiring expenses could easily dwarf such minimal capital costs.

And there is more to wireless access than flexibility and monetary savings. Using wireless portable computers to access the Internet in the library gives patrons the same privacy that reading a book has. “Public access workstations” can be replaced by “private access workstations.” This would go a long way toward eliminating the emotionally charged issue of accessing pornography on the Internet, an issue that gains much of its power from the public nature of most wired access. Now that would be progress!

Open Source Sources

After seeing recent announcements for Open Source reserves software, portal software, and ILL software (see below), I decided to check out www.oss4lib.org to see how many library-related Open Source programs are readily available. The site listed more than 80 projects. It also features a Library and Information Technology Association Guide for the uninitiated, “Open Source Software for Libraries,” available for ordering at www.lita.org.

So who’s doing all this library-related OSS development? While sponsorship categories may be open to interpretation, here is my “quick and dirty” accounting of where all this OSS coding is coming from:

The numbers represent projects, not institutions or individuals. For example, OCLC sponsors half of the OSS projects in the not-for-profit category and the Olivet Nazarene University Benner Library and Resource Center sponsors three of the 32 OSS projects in academia. Kudos to OCLC, and to Craighton Hippenhammer, information technology librarian at Olivet, and the administration that supports his coding efforts. A nascent network is beginning to make its mark.

Contracts and Agreements

Acquisitions and Alliances

Announcements