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[Jason Stephenson]

Drew Van Zandt wrote:
> Happens I know the newly-hired IT director for a new library in the
> New England area... any pointers to info on libraries using Linux thin
> clients etc. I can pass along to them?

It just so happens that by day I am the Assistant Director for 
Technology Services (*yawn*) for the Merrimack Valley Library 
Consortium, which is a concortium of 35 Massachusetts public libraries. 
(Aren't you impressed? Not!)

Some of our members (at least 2) are considering getting Linux clients 
from a Canadian company called Useful. They've got systems that can have 
up to 10 monitors, keyboards and mice connected to a single PC and all 
being used at once by different people simultaneously. I imagine they've 
hardwired ptys to each video card/keyboard/mouse combo in the drivers. 
Yes, it runs X, and it comes with print management and timeout software 
(two things that most libraries want for public access computers).--I'm 
a little fuzzy on how much of that extra stuff is Free software.

They are going to be at the PLA (Public Library Association) convention 
this month in Boston. They're having a special demo. session with one of 
their customers during the show. (They invited me to come for a look, 
today.) Stop by their booth and I'm sure you can get the meeting 
details.--I'm not going, so I promptly free()'d that section of my brain 
when I hung the phone up.

As for what my Consortium uses, we have a mix of Fedora GNU/Linux, 
Solaris, and Winders computers in the server room at the central site in 
Andover. Desktops as central and at the member libraries are almost all 
Winders.

If anyone wishes to contact me about libraries and technology, feel free 
to email me at my work address: jstephenson at mvlc.org. You can pass that 
address on to your friend, Drew.

Cheers,
Jason