CSCWiki - User contributions [en]

Meeting:Thursday 2 October 2008

2008-10-01T11:14:25Z

J2simpso:

=CSC General Meeting (Thursday, October 2, 2008)=

==Agenda==
* Furniture
**Discussion of possible chairs to buy
***Price per chair
***How many chairs to buy?
***When to buy them?
***Who/how will it be initially paid?
* Library
** Book purchasing/disposal policies
** Books that should be purchased
*** Prioritize these books
* Office rules
** How they're enforced
** Why they exist
* Theo de Raadt/Jeff Siskind
** Need a rough budget for each in order to prepare funding requests
* Student outreach
** Interest was expressed by Frank Tompa

Meeting:Tuesday 16 September 2008

2008-10-01T11:07:35Z

J2simpso: New page: Minutes of the First Meeting of The Computer Science of the University of Waterloo Taken : September 16, 2008 at 5:30 PM Executives In Attendance: President Matt Lawrence (m3lawr...

Minutes of the First Meeting of
The Computer Science of the University of Waterloo

Taken : September 16, 2008 at 5:30 PM

Executives In Attendance:
President Matt Lawrence (m3lawren)
Vice President Edgar Bering (ebering)
Treasurer Michael Gregson (mgregson)
Secretary James Simpson (j2simpso)

President raises the issue of appointed positions, and discussion follows between members and executive:

Librarian - Secretary nominates Nick Guenther (nguenthe) to position. Nick Guenther seems somewhat interested. Dominik Chlobowski (dchlobow) expresses
some interest in the position. Several members point out that a new member Sapphire,
appears to be extremely interested and knowledgeable in the area of library administration,
and the executive decide to defer this issue to the next meeting, so that an opportunity
can be taken to further consider this possibility.

System Administrator (sysadmin) - Discussion begins with the possibility of Erik Louie (elouie)
becoming the sysadmin for this term. However the member did not appear to be around at the time
and several members noted that he may not be interested in fulfilling such a position. The President
nominates Kyle Spaans (kspaans) as sysadmin, the Vice President seconds this motion. The motion is
brought to the membership of the Computer Science Club, and the motion is successfully ratified by
a majority of those present.

Individual Making Arrangements for Pop Delivery (imapd) - A question is posed by the President regarding
who attending the meeting has a means for making the pop delivery (i.e. they have a car). Michael Spang
mentions that he has a car and would be willing to make pop deliveries. The secretary also notes that
he also has a car available for such use and would be willing to assist in the procurement of pop. Michael
yields the responsibility to the secretary. The President raises a motion for James Simpson (j2simpso) to be appointed
to the position of imapd, and Nathaniel Sherry (nsasherr) seconds the motion. The motion is ratified by
majority vote of membership.

The President raises a motion to have executive meetings every other Thursday at 4:30 PM effective immediately,
with the next meeting set to Thursday October 2nd, 2008. Member Dominik Chlobowski (dchlobow), expresses concern
regarding proposed timing of the meeting and proposes the meeting be held at 5:30 PM instead. Members and executive
disagree with the suggestion and decide to consider the original motion as it stands. Member Kevin Farnworth (kfarnwor), seconds the original motion. The motion is brought to a vote of members and executives of the club and is ratified by the majority of those in attendance.

The Vice-President discusses the program committee and its role in being responsible for organizing events held
by the club. He mentions that those interested in volunteering should stay after the
executive meeting, as there will be a program committee meeting commencing thereafter.

Club member Holden Karau (hkarau), raises the issue of appointing a web master for this term. However, after
discussion amongst members and executive it was decided to defer this decision until the next executive meeting.

The secretary brings forward a motion to allow electronic recording devices (such as audio recorders)
to record the minutes of future executive meetings to allow for a more accurate transcript of the minutes. The Treasurer
raises possible privacy concerns regarding the retention of such information, as well as off the record items being recorded.
The President decides to amend the motion to add a provision that the audio records are to be immediately destroyed after
the minutes of the meeting are transcribed. The Treasurer seconds the original motion with suggested amendments. The
motion is ratified by the majority of the members.

The President moves to close the meeting and the Vice-President seconds the motion. The motion to close the meeting
is ratified by the majority of those in attendance.

End of Minutes of Meeting

Meeting:Meetings

2008-10-01T11:07:25Z

J2simpso: /* General Meetings */

==Minutes of Meetings (Executive)==
* [[Tuesday 16 September 2008]]
==General Meetings==

* [[Friday 19 October 2007]]
* [[Thursday 2 October 2008]]

Library Project

2008-09-21T09:18:29Z

J2simpso:

== Existing Solution ==
There is currently a table in MySQL on caffeine in the database 'library'. It's pretty self-explanatory.

== Objectives ==
Our club library is pretty impressive, for 1980. We should seriously consider changing this to 2007. Content decisions seem to generally be made by strongly opinionated individuals whereas we should be focused on providing resources for anyone on campus who is interested in computer science.
* Update and improve library content.
* Bring in a proper library management system.
** This may want to be written. If interested in contributing, contact the Systems Committee or Club Executive.
* Set up some method of keeping the library current in the future.
* Re-evaluate the purpose of our library.

== Books Wishlist ==
=== Theory ===
* Approximation Algorithms
* Randomized Algorithms
* Computer and Intractability (Grey & Johnson)
* Knuth Art of Computer Programming
* Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
* Project Management
** Software Requirements
** Software Design & Architecture
** Software Testing
* Concurrency/Multithreading
* Security (Firewalls)
* Introduction to the Theory of Computation
* Numerical Analysis
* Numerical Methods? (Stoer & Bulirsch)
** This is probably not the actual title. We want a book on numerical methods by Stoer & Bulirsch
* Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective (Bryant & O'Hallaron)

=== Programming Languages ===
* Python
* Perl
* Haskell
* Ruby
* C#
* Visual Basic .NET
* OCaml
* Lisp
* Scheme
* F#
* Basic
* Pascal
* Java
* Groovy
* Javascript
* C/C++
* Assembly
* Fortran
* Databases [SQL]

=== Technology Books ===
* Ubuntu
* Unix/Linux Beginner Books
* OpenGL/DirectX
* GTK
* Unix Network Programming

=== Miscellaneous ===
* Mein Kampf
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]
== Guidelines for Library Funding ==
In the past, our budgets have failed to focus much attention to the library,
even though our textbooks keeping getting older and less relevant, and courses
and frontiers in Computer Science evolve. It is a shame that we don't have a book
on multi-core programming, or artificial intelligence! The following guideline
provides a detailed strategy for budgeting for books in the future :

*Did you know that every year approximately 20% of the courses in SCS change their books & edition?
This equates to something like $1000 of new material per year. As a result :
**We need to raise at least $1,000 annually to keep up with the material used to cover courses in SCS
**We will need to raise most of it during the Fall & Winter terms since :
***First offerings of courses occur in the Fall/Winter term each year and that is when the new textbooks arrive
***Historically we get higher memberships and people on campus so more funding
*Did you know that CS is a constantly changing field?
**New fields within CS are discovered every year
**New technologies and paradigms (e.g. multi-core programming) occur every 5 to 10 years?
**New knowledge is discovered in the field that replaces our older (less accurate) knowledge?
We therefore need to allocate roughly $1,500 per year to have a library that accurately reflects the current
and state of the art of computer science. To say that our library is not state of the art in CS is an extreme
under-statement. This funding could be equally spread out to $500 per term from mathsoc.

Currently our library is very much outdated and does not have textbooks that reflect the courses that CS students are
currently taking. From my estimate we need approximately $5,000 to have an up to date CS library. Therefore for the immediate strategy we need to get at least $1,500 per term from Mathsoc/MEF to allow our library a chance at staying current with the department's offerings. Therefore we should try to budget in $2,000 for Fall,Winter and Spring to get our library updated to the CS courses as well as to cover some of the frontiers and state of the art in computing that will serve our library into the future.

A great deal of discussion has been spent talking about our library equipment and possible hardware (barcode upgrades for instance). However I don't think it would be irresponsible for us to look at these areas and especially to budget these improvements in if we don't have a vastly updated library.
== Fixing the Library ==
A statement :
The only way to get the library fixed is through terms of growing and pruning.
As mentioned above, we need to grow our library to reflect the courses offered in SCS,
as well as to cover the current and state of the art in CS.

At the same time it is important that we prune down our library to contain relevant and
updated material. There is no point in having a cluttered library that makes it hard to
find reference material because we must hold on to books that are 20/30+ years old. We
don't need to have books on APL/360 programming, and having these old unnecessarry books
will pollute our library with irrelevance and outdatedness.

The only way the library can be fixed is to find the solutions to the direct problems in our
library. That is rather than worrying about the irrelevant technical details of the library system,
we need to take a look at our inventory (that is our books) and see what needs growing and pruning.
We can build the technical layers once we have built the paper layers (that is the physical books have
been purchased or have been planned to be purchased). It will take courage and will to follow
this procedure since we will have to let go of things that need letting go.
== Proposed Library Update Plan ==
One of the problems in keeping any library relevant is to ensure that reference material
is up to date and current with the area of study in question. This is especially true in
the area of computer science and technology where ideas change fast. The following are some
suggested considerations which could aid in keeping our library up to date now and into the
future.
* Safari Bookshelf Subscription
Safari Bookshelf is a online web service that allows you to read any O'Reilly book for a
subscription fee (usually around $40/month). This service will give the CSC an excellent
online library resource, where members can login and view all of the latest O'Reilly books
including those yet to be published. Access control would be a concern which would need
to be addressed in using such a system, however the concept of having an electronic resource
of continually up to date reference material is tempting.
* What are the new technologies and ideas in computer science?
This is the question that we should be asking ourselves at least at the beginning of the term
to determine what new books need to be purchased to fill the reference gap that builds going from
term to term. We should have a firm commitment of purchasing at least 10 reference books per term
to ensure that we are getting the breadth and depth requirements of having a successful CS library,
especially when it is common for dozens of new CS books to be released every term.
* What are the official CS course textbooks?
The CSC should have an up to date library of all of the required textbooks for all of the CS courses
offered at the University. This will allow our members to quickly access their course reference materials
should they ever leave their books at home, or need to look at the book desperately for an assignment that
is coming due soon. The CSC be a source of reference for CS students who need the references that drive
many of their CS courses.
* What books are getting old?
** How relevant is the book's content today?
** Has the book gone to a new edition?
** Have their been fundamental changes in the topic which are not reflected in the current book?
** How popular is the book? (This can be determined by how many times it has been checked out from the library system)
** Does the material fill a large gap in our reference material?
== Library Accessories ==
There has also been some talk for suggested accessories or tools for our library system. The
following is the current list of such accessories and reasons behind getting such accessories.
* Magstripe Member Cards
Each CSC member could have a magstripe member card which would allow them to check-in and checkout
books by swiping their card at a swiper and then scanning the book in question. This could speed
up the check-in/check-out times since they do not need to enter information into the system, but
rather scan their cards. The magstripe cards could later be extended with CEO to allow term renewal
via card swipe, as well as other value added features.
* Wireless barcode scanner.
The wireless barcode scanner will allow us to go up to the books and scan them in, rather than
having to move the books over to the barcode scanner to have them scanned. This will allow for
a degree of more freedom when scanning in books (especially when we receive the stack of new
books)
* RFID tags
When we receive new books, RFID tags encoded with book information is attached to each book.
Whenever, someone checks-in/checks out books, all you need to do is wave the book in front of a scanner
without having to locate the barcode, which could speed up the process of checking in and out books

Talks

2008-09-17T04:23:10Z

J2simpso:

== Planned Talks (Winter 2008) ==
* February 1st
** Research In Motion
* February 29th (Confirmed): Overview of Quantum Computing
** Raymond Laflamme (Director, IQC)
* Week of March 3rd (Proposed)
** Second IQC talk
* Week of March 10th (Proposed)
** Kate Larson (Game Theory)

== Requested ==
* Michael Geist
** Canadian Law and Technologist Blogger
* Wayne Beaton
** Technical Evangelist for The Eclipse Foundation
* Keith Packard
** X Windows
** Holden has contacted him again to ask him to come in October
* Walter Bright
** D Programming Language
* Hans Peter Anvin
** Linux kernel hacker
* Cory Doctorow
** Co-editor of Boing Boing
* CSCF/MFCF/IST Open Forum
** Dave Gawley [CSCF]
** Dawn Keenan [IST]
** Jim Pell [MFCF]
** Stephen Mann [SCS]
** Bruce Campbell [IST]
* Jeffrey Shallit

== Possible Speakers/Talks (not yet requested) ==
*Noam Chompsky
*Richard Stallman
**Holden has suggested that perhaps he can give another talk?
*Ron Rivest
**Helped create the RSA scheme, also helped write the CLRS book
*Phillipe Khan
**Founded Borland in the 1980s, helped develop several successful languages and products (also inveted camera phone)
*Bill Joy
**Known for his work on BSD Unix, vi and csh
*John McCarthy
**Known for his work on the LISP functional language
*Andrew Tanenbaum
**Author of MINIX and well known for his work in the area of operating systems
== Encoding ==

We use dvgrab to rip the talks from the camera and ffmpeg to encode.

== Mirrors ==
* taurine (90 Mbps) [It can probably push much more if it were on a gigabit link]
* citric-acid (250 Mbps)

The list of mirrors can be found in caffeine:/var/www/mirrors.txt the web server selects a random mirror from this list at each file request. We now run [[SNMP|Net-SNMP]] on all of our hosts, so we have real-time access to network and cpu load data. We should therefore be able to write a more intelligent mirror selection script. We also use mirror.cs to mirror on-campus.

We are currently looking at [[QoS|QoS tagging]] to throttle our bandwidth.

Projects

2007-10-08T17:34:43Z

J2simpso:

These are current on-going CSC projects:
* [[Hardware Selection Guidelines]]
* [[Library Project]]
* [[CEO]]
* [[Filesystem replication]]
* Seting up virtual mail-boxes and virtual aliases for clubs.
* Getting a IPv6 subnet
* Club CMSs, etc...
* Virtualizing services
* Setup mailing list for webmasters of clubs we host so they can receive service related announcements from us
* Setup a reliable programming contest framework
* Get disk:/export/users mounted on cscf's linux frontends and cpu servers
* Common club auth
* Advertising procedures manual
* [[Cross compiler]]
* [[QoS]] for mirroring talks
* Setup ability to create pgsql/mysql databases in user's home directory (e.g. ~/.databases) so that db's count against quota
* Setup inode quota
* Dave asked us if we want another thin client - we should make sure to follow up and get one
* Advertise compiz packages to the world
* [[SNMP#Plugins|Net-SNMP plugins]]
* [[emdebian]]
* [[Virtual Machines]]

Completed Projects:
* [[Mirror|Debian and Ubuntu Mirror]]

Ceo

2007-10-06T16:32:03Z

J2simpso:

CEO is the CSC member creation and administration interface. CEO was originally written in perl by persons of mysterious-ness. CEO was re-written in python by Michael Spang in early 2007.

= Feature Requests and Ideas =

* 'New member' should prompt for userid and then use uwldap to pre-fill name and program
* Merge 'New member' and 'Create an account'
* Remove 'Library functions', as they are now in koha
* Manage exec positions with ceo
** The positions should be stored in LDAP
** CEO should prompt for each position (pre-filling with the current position holder)
** CEO should then update ldap and regenerate aliases
*** We would have an /etc/aliases.exec or something
** The exec xml would be auto-generated from LDAP
* 'Register for a term' should pre-fill term with the current term
* Manage office staff and syscom
* Integrate club creation and sudo management
* Create a graphical version of CEO
= Magnetic Strip Member Card Proposal =

Another idea for the CSC is to have a magnetic strip (MagStripe), membership
card which stores part of the account data on the card. CEO and our existing
library system can integrate with the card allowing member renewals to occur
with the swipe of a card, or library books getting checked in/out via a card
swipe. We may wish to have magstripe integration within CEO in the future.

Library Project

2007-10-06T16:29:13Z

J2simpso:

== Objectives ==
Our club library is pretty impressive, for 1980. We should seriously consider changing this to 2007. Content decisions seem to generally be made by strongly opinionated individuals whereas we should be focused on providing resources for anyone on campus who is interested in computer science.
* Update and improve library content.
* Bring in a proper library management system.
* Set up some method of keeping the library current in the future.
* Re-evaluate the purpose of our library.

== Books Wishlist ==
=== Theory ===
* Approximation Algorithms
* Randomized Algorithms
* Computer and Intractability (Grey & Johnson)
* Knuth Art of Computer Programming
* Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
* Project Management
** Software Requirements
** Software Design & Architecture
** Software Testing
* Concurrency/Multithreading
* Security (Firewalls)
* Introduction to the Theory of Computation
* Numerical Analysis
=== Programming Languages ===
* Python
* Perl
* Haskell
* Ruby
* C#
* Visual Basic .NET
* OCaml
* Lisp
* Scheme
* F#
* Basic
* Pascal
* Java
* Groovy
* Javascript
* C/C++
* Assembly
* Fortran
* Databases [SQL]
=== Technology Books ===
* Ubuntu
* Unix/Linux Beginner Books
* OpenGL/DirectX
* GTK
== Proposed Library Update Plan ==
One of the problems in keeping any library relevant is to ensure that reference material
is up to date and current with the area of study in question. This is especially true in
the area of computer science and technology where ideas change fast. The following are some
suggested considerations which could aid in keeping our library up to date now and into the
future.
* Safari Bookshelf Subscription
Safari Bookshelf is a online web service that allows you to read any O'Reilly book for a
subscription fee (usually around $40/month). This service will give the CSC an excellent
online library resource, where members can login and view all of the latest O'Reilly books
including those yet to be published. Access control would be a concern which would need
to be addressed in using such a system, however the concept of having an electronic resource
of continually up to date reference material is tempting.
* What are the new technologies and ideas in computer science?
This is the question that we should be asking ourselves at least at the beginning of the term
to determine what new books need to be purchased to fill the reference gap that builds going from
term to term. We should have a firm commitment of purchasing at least 10 reference books per term
to ensure that we are getting the breadth and depth requirements of having a successful CS library,
especially when it is common for dozens of new CS books to be released every term.
* What are the official CS course textbooks?
The CSC should have an up to date library of all of the required textbooks for all of the CS courses
offered at the University. This will allow our members to quickly access their course reference materials
should they ever leave their books at home, or need to look at the book desperately for an assignment that
is coming due soon. The CSC be a source of reference for CS students who need the references that drive
many of their CS courses.
* What books are getting old?
** How relevant is the book's content today?
** Has the book gone to a new edition?
** Have their been fundamental changes in the topic which are not reflected in the current book?
** How popular is the book? (This can be determined by how many times it has been checked out from the library system)
** Does the material fill a large gap in our reference material?
== Library Accessories ==
There has also been some talk for suggested accessories or tools for our library system. The
following is the current list of such accessories and reasons behind getting such accessories.
* Magstripe Member Cards
Each CSC member could have a magstripe member card which would allow them to check-in and checkout
books by swiping their card at a swiper and then scanning the book in question. This could speed
up the check-in/check-out times since they do not need to enter information into the system, but
rather scan their cards. The magstripe cards could later be extended with CEO to allow term renewal
via card swipe, as well as other value added features.
* Wireless barcode scanner.
The wireless barcode scanner will allow us to go up to the books and scan them in, rather than
having to move the books over to the barcode scanner to have them scanned. This will allow for
a degree of more freedom when scanning in books (especially when we receive the stack of new
books)
* RFID tags
When we receive new books, RFID tags encoded with book information is attached to each book.
Whenever, someone checks-in/checks out books, all you need to do is wave the book in front of a scanner
without having to locate the barcode, which could speed up the process of checking in and out books

Library Project

2007-10-06T16:28:55Z

J2simpso:

== Objectives ==
Our club library is pretty impressive, for 1980. We should seriously consider changing this to 2007. Content decisions seem to generally be made by strongly opinionated individuals whereas we should be focused on providing resources for anyone on campus who is interested in computer science.
* Update and improve library content.
* Bring in a proper library management system.
* Set up some method of keeping the library current in the future.
* Re-evaluate the purpose of our library.

== Books Wishlist ==
=== Theory ===
* Approximation Algorithms
* Randomized Algorithms
* Computer and Intractability (Grey & Johnson)
* Knuth Art of Computer Programming
* Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
* Project Management
** Software Requirements
** Software Design & Architecture
** Software Testing
* Concurrency/Multithreading
* Security (Firewalls)
* Introduction to the Theory of Computation
* Numerical Analysis
=== Programming Languages ===
* Python
* Perl
* Haskell
* Ruby
* C#
* Visual Basic .NET
* OCaml
* Lisp
* Scheme
* F#
* Basic
* Pascal
* Java
* Groovy
* Javascript
* C/C++
* Assembly
* Fortran
* Databases [SQL]
=== Technology Books ===
* Ubuntu
* Unix/Linux Beginner Books
* OpenGL/DirectX
* GTK
== Proposed Library Update Plan ==
One of the problems in keeping any library relevant is to ensure that reference material
is up to date and current with the area of study in question. This is especially true in
the area of computer science and technology where ideas change fast. The following are some
suggested considerations which could aid in keeping our library up to date now and into the
future.
* Safari Bookshelf Subscription
Safari Bookshelf is a online web service that allows you to read any O'Reilly book for a
subscription fee (usually around $40/month). This service will give the CSC an excellent
online library resource, where members can login and view all of the latest O'Reilly books
including those yet to be published. Access control would be a concern which would need
to be addressed in using such a system, however the concept of having an electronic resource
of continually up to date reference material is tempting.
* What are the new technologies and ideas in computer science?
This is the question that we should be asking ourselves at least at the beginning of the term
to determine what new books need to be purchased to fill the reference gap that builds going from
term to term. We should have a firm commitment of purchasing at least 10 reference books per term
to ensure that we are getting the breadth and depth requirements of having a successful CS library,
especially when it is common for dozens of new CS books to be released every term.
* What are the official CS course textbooks?
The CSC should have an up to date library of all of the required textbooks for all of the CS courses
offered at the University. This will allow our members to quickly access their course reference materials
should they ever leave their books at home, or need to look at the book desperately for an assignment that
is coming due soon. The CSC be a source of reference for CS students who need the references that drive
many of their CS courses.
* What is getting old?
** How relevant is the book's content today?
** Has the book gone to a new edition?
** Have their been fundamental changes in the topic which are not reflected in the current book?
** How popular is the book? (This can be determined by how many times it has been checked out from the library system)
** Does the material fill a large gap in our reference material?
== Library Accessories ==
There has also been some talk for suggested accessories or tools for our library system. The
following is the current list of such accessories and reasons behind getting such accessories.
* Magstripe Member Cards
Each CSC member could have a magstripe member card which would allow them to check-in and checkout
books by swiping their card at a swiper and then scanning the book in question. This could speed
up the check-in/check-out times since they do not need to enter information into the system, but
rather scan their cards. The magstripe cards could later be extended with CEO to allow term renewal
via card swipe, as well as other value added features.
* Wireless barcode scanner.
The wireless barcode scanner will allow us to go up to the books and scan them in, rather than
having to move the books over to the barcode scanner to have them scanned. This will allow for
a degree of more freedom when scanning in books (especially when we receive the stack of new
books)
* RFID tags
When we receive new books, RFID tags encoded with book information is attached to each book.
Whenever, someone checks-in/checks out books, all you need to do is wave the book in front of a scanner
without having to locate the barcode, which could speed up the process of checking in and out books

Library Project

2007-10-06T16:28:15Z

J2simpso:

== Objectives ==
Our club library is pretty impressive, for 1980. We should seriously consider changing this to 2007. Content decisions seem to generally be made by strongly opinionated individuals whereas we should be focused on providing resources for anyone on campus who is interested in computer science.
* Update and improve library content.
* Bring in a proper library management system.
* Set up some method of keeping the library current in the future.
* Re-evaluate the purpose of our library.

== Books Wishlist ==
=== Theory ===
* Approximation Algorithms
* Randomized Algorithms
* Computer and Intractability (Grey & Johnson)
* Knuth Art of Computer Programming
* Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
* Project Management
** Software Requirements
** Software Design & Architecture
** Software Testing
* Concurrency/Multithreading
* Security (Firewalls)
* Introduction to the Theory of Computation
* Numerical Analysis
=== Programming Languages ===
* Python
* Perl
* Haskell
* Ruby
* C#
* Visual Basic .NET
* OCaml
* Lisp
* Scheme
* F#
* Basic
* Pascal
* Java
* Groovy
* Javascript
* C/C++
* Assembly
* Fortran
* Databases [SQL]
=== Technology Books ===
* Ubuntu
* Unix/Linux Beginner Books
* OpenGL/DirectX
* GTK
== Proposed Library Update Plan ==
One of the problems in keeping any library relevant is to ensure that reference material
is up to date and current with the area of study in question. This is especially true in
the area of computer science and technology where ideas change fast. The following are some
suggested considerations which could aid in keeping our library up to date now and into the
future.
* Safari Bookshelf Subscription
Safari Bookshelf is a online web service that allows you to read any O'Reilly book for a
subscription fee (usually around $40/month). This service will give the CSC an excellent
online library resource, where members can login and view all of the latest O'Reilly books
including those yet to be published. Access control would be a concern which would need
to be addressed in using such a system, however the concept of having an electronic resource
of continually up to date reference material is tempting.
* What are the new technologies and ideas in computer science?
This is the question that we should be asking ourselves at least at the beginning of the term
to determine what new books need to be purchased to fill the reference gap that builds going from
term to term. We should have a firm commitment of purchasing at least 10 reference books per term
to ensure that we are getting the breadth and depth requirements of having a successful CS library,
especially when it is common for dozens of new CS books to be released every term.
* What are the official CS course textbooks?
The CSC should have an up to date library of all of the required textbooks for all of the CS courses
offered at the University. This will allow our members to quickly access their course reference materials
should they ever leave their books at home, or need to look at the book desperately for an assignment that
is coming due soon. The CSC be a source of reference for CS students who need the references that drive
many of their CS courses.
* What is getting old?
Another key determination is when to start throwing out books which are deemed old. This is an important
function to this library since we have limited space and new books will be arriving every term in many cases.
The following are some guidelines we should consider to determine whether to throw out/replace reference books:
** How relevant is the book's content today?
** Has the book gone to a new edition?
** Have their been fundamental changes in the topic which are not reflected in the current book?
** How popular is the book? (This can be determined by how many times it has been checked out from the library system)
** Does the material fill a large gap in our reference material?
== Library Accessories ==
There has also been some talk for suggested accessories or tools for our library system. The
following is the current list of such accessories and reasons behind getting such accessories.
* Magstripe Member Cards
Each CSC member could have a magstripe member card which would allow them to check-in and checkout
books by swiping their card at a swiper and then scanning the book in question. This could speed
up the check-in/check-out times since they do not need to enter information into the system, but
rather scan their cards. The magstripe cards could later be extended with CEO to allow term renewal
via card swipe, as well as other value added features.
* Wireless barcode scanner.
The wireless barcode scanner will allow us to go up to the books and scan them in, rather than
having to move the books over to the barcode scanner to have them scanned. This will allow for
a degree of more freedom when scanning in books (especially when we receive the stack of new
books)
* RFID tags
When we receive new books, RFID tags encoded with book information is attached to each book.
Whenever, someone checks-in/checks out books, all you need to do is wave the book in front of a scanner
without having to locate the barcode, which could speed up the process of checking in and out books

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