LIASA CONFERENCE 2003
Rustenburg
25 September 2003

                ABUNDANT NETWORK SERVICES FOR LIBRARIES USING LINUX

                                                             By Satu Hallikainen
                                                   The Library of Muurola, Finland

Muurola, Finland’s model makes good use of open source software to provide customers with the Internet services they need, affordably, accurately and reliably.

An increasingly large portion of the information needed by library customers is in a digital form, there is a question about the information produced by public institutions or private persons. Many services needed by citizens have also been moved to data networks. Of these, services related to finding jobs and studies are probably the most significant to library customers. Teaching methods have changed and independent-studying has become more important than before for learning, often being done with the help of the Internet. In general libraries are responsible for self-motivated studies and partially responsible for services related to degree-oriented distance learning. Libraries want to be seen as the junction place of the open data network of the information society, which guarantees the availability of dependable information irregardless of a person’s place of residence and wealth. A real indication of democracy will be how well we succeed in this regard.

There are network services available in the main libraries and central places of municipalities. However, the need for these services is greatest in outlying places. It is a long and expensive trip to search for information and services from there. It is therefore fundamental that the customers of small libraries located in outlying areas get network services. However, it is not unproblematic to arrange these services. Municipalities wrestle with economic problems and the economy of many municipalities seems to become only worse. For this reason it is extremely important to find a solution which is not expensive. The library of Muurola in the rural commune of Rovaniemi, Finland is located in a village of about a thousand inhabitants. It tries to solve the problems for small libraries in such a way that the model will be suitable for others as well.

Technology has consumed far too many resources during the last years: economic, mental and ecological. It has hence been important to build a model which saves all of these. Our principle is that technology must be advantageous considering its price, reliability and durability. This means that licence fees are avoided and programmes in which there are as few mistakes as possible and which will make use of the same machines (the library of sustainable development) for many years possible.

The library of Muurola has solved the problem by bringing into use the results of open source programming efforts, of which the Linux operating system with its application programs is representative. We have built four Internet workstations for our customers’ use. The Linux operating system, which is freely available from the Internet, functions in three of these. It operates in old machines that have already indeed been thrown out. It is possible to offer these services excellently with the help of Linux because our library customers’ most important network services are the use of e-mail and the browsing of web pages. This way we avoid the licence fees of commercial programmes and can operate without having to purchase new machines every other year. Even though Linux is free, it also operates steadily and efficiently. Many features that are missing from commercial programmes can be used. Linux also offers services to users who require development tools. Because Linux has been built like the Unix operating system on which the Internet operates, it is especially Internet compatible. If we want to guarantee to our customers a safe operating system in which the danger of viruses and security problems have been minimised, Linux is a good alternative.

A propaganda war against Open Source Software(OSS) is in progress. Newspapers write about how difficult the installation and use of Linux are. It is said that Linux belongs to domain of nerds, the server room. The development of Linux has been quick, with thousands of volunteers around the world developing it. There are products (also Finnish ones) that are extremely handy and are easily installed. The customer does not even necessarily know that they are using Linux because its use does not really deviate from the use of the Windows operating system. The user interfaces are clear and conventional. Through us elementary school students are able to use Linux Internet programs without any supervision. In Muurola the Linux experiment has begun as early as 1999. Our customers have not complained of Linux being difficult to use. On the contrary, Linux receives praise for its speed. The data communications links of Muurola are good (2048 kbps). The advantages of Linux operating in a new computer are also impressive: it is many times faster than ubiquitous Windows. What is the number of workstations that is sufficient? Often times in larger libraries, from the writers’s experience, there are machines with a sign hanging on them: out-of-order.  However, our services are also taken care of with old machines, although a little more slowly. The use of old PCs has made it possible to be able to provide additional Internet machines for our customers.  Sufficient network services can not be provided on one machine.  Four machines towards a thousand inhabitants seems to be quite suitable ratio for Muurola.  When one queues for a machine, the waiting time has not been long.
 
Now we are extending the use of Open Source Software also to other services. Corresponding to the Microsoft Office package is the OpenOffice package which is free to the user and may be freely copied from the net. For example, its word processing program is Word compatible and the spreadsheet Excel compatible. There are other programmes which are also freely available from the net such as GIMP which gives tools for image processing. Why pay for commercial products if sufficient and good services to the customers of the library are obtained using free ones? More sensible than spending our limited funds on commercial programmes is to employ IT support. In the library of Muurola our “IT gardener” guarantees the fact that ”out-of-order” is not on a single machine and that the library professionals’ nerves do stress with technical problems. Letting expensive machines wait in a broken state is a wasting of resources. The person in question also manages the machines and connections of schools. If it was calculated how much money schools could save with the use of Free Software, the IT gardener’s employment would not be a problem.

Now on all levels, that of the EU countries as well as on the municipality level, the use of Free Software is being discussed. Around the world its use increases wildly. Many countries have built public services on them. For example Linux is widely in use in China, India, Mexico and France. Safety matters are essential; one does not want that it is possible to break into information from outside. BSD or Linux operating systems are therefore chosen. We have not paid enough attention to this here. This point of view should indeed become more important. On the other hand, the economic viewpoints are solid. It is not insignificant to where money currents are directed from the point of view of national or regional advantage; to overseas corporations or to local employment.

Already now new possibilities for utilising the Open Source Code ideology can be seen. There are Free tools which could be used to make open public domain programs for the needs of municipalities and countries. The library systems in use at the moment are commercial and therefore expensive. Their functions are not necessarily ideal either, whether they are examined from the customer’s or library professional’s point of view. So it is sensible to work for the fact that particularly for small and medium-sized libraries a good, open public library system which we ourselves govern and pay only for maintenance and development would be obtained. A library cannot collect the corresponding sums of money from its customers that the rising cost of commercial products would require. The Free Software ideology suits the public sector, in my opinion, the best. The model of Muurola has been tried and tested. We want to tell that the option is real. The question is whether there is enough daring to leave for new ways and give up conventional operations models.

APPENDIX

Explanation of Muurola’s Inernet workstations

1) Old basic Linux PC

Needs a minimum 100 MHz machine (Pentium, AMD, Cyrix).

• At Muurola we have 120MHz  Pentiums, 32 MB of memory, 2 GB hard disk, a   1 MB video card, and a 15” monitor.
• Machines use Linux Mandrake 8.1, available from http//:linux.tucows.fi/distribution.html

               With Linux the amount of memory is more important than processor speed.

2) Mid-performance Linux PC

• 475 MHz processor,  64 MB of memory, 1.1 GB hard disk, 8 MB video card, anda 15” monitor.
• Runs Linux Mandrake 8.1.

3) New basic Linux PC

• 850 MHz processor, 128 MB of memory, 10 GB hard disk, 8 MB video card, and a 17” monitor.
• Runs Linux Mandrake 8.1.