Today as a precursor to the VALA2010 conference, I ran an “L-Plates” introductory session about Open Source Software and Libraries. I still give my Travel Scholar paper on Thursday, Taking matters into our own hands: influencing factors and concerning factors for libraries that developed their own Open Source Software .

As promised, the slides for the L Plates session are below, Open Source Software and Libraries. It involved dry spaghetti and a jar of Paul Newman’s Own Tomato sauce – but didn’t quite match Paul Hagon’s Beyonce interpretive dance during his API and Mashups session.

My food-but-no-dancing session defined Open Source and outlined how it fits in with library philosophies and practice in order to help library staff make informed decisions about Open Source software for their libraries.

It includes:

1. Definition of Open Source

2. Open Source as a licence

3. Open Source as software development method

4. Widely used Open Source Software

5. Who is using Open Source Software?

6. Library Specific Open Source Software

7. Barriers and benefits for Open Source Software