Let's Talk About: Open Source

So, I promised I would come back around to shed light on the beauty of open source. The day for Open Source came sooner than expected. Today, I had a patron come to me with a problem for which open source was the best solution.

The Situation:
A young lady needed to create a web site as part of her course work for school. The problem was that she didn't have the finances to access the wonderful (and expensive) technology usually utilized by the professionals. She went to her library (one not a part of my system), and when her library could not help her, they called me. I don't believe they were looking for me specifically, but by fate or sheer luck they got me- Library Lady.

Reaction:
I assessed the situation. I asked open ended questions so that I could get an initial overview of the content needed. I slowly narrowed my field of questions until I could confirm that I was in fact thinking of what my patron required. Unfortunately, my library does not allow patrons to check out computer programs, and I don't know of any in my area that do.

The Solution:
Recently I've been using open source alternatives. I've tried out Open Office as a portable application on a thumb drive. (We can't download things to the staff computers without going through hoops.) I discovered that Office Draw is a lot like Publisher- and I am very familiar with Publisher, and I could do the same things. My boss discovered that the alternative to Microsoft Word offers an option to alter a document to a pdf in one click. So, I knew that these alternatives were generally as good as if not better than the name brands offered at the store. I took the patron's email address, and sent her a link to not one, but FIVE alternative programs for her to consider. After some research, we discovered that Kompozer was one of the most highly rated alternatives to Dreamweaver for creating websites. She was so relieved.

All of this is to say that Open Source is our friend. Hopefully libraries will continue to bring Open Source to the public in new ways.