This is a really fascinating discussion! There've been some sessions at various conferences about how small museums, in particular, can utilize the plethora of free and open source applications now available. But even our own midsized museum is starting to struggle with this. Case in point: this morning, I answered an email from another staff member about Microsoft Project. Since we've already used up our allotted Microsoft Products through TechSoup, this particular staff member is kinda SOL through the end of the year when it comes to ordering another license for MS Project. So we've directed her to OpenProj instead. Unfortunately, she wants it to integrate with our Exchange server and is uncomfortable with looking online for answers to questions (we only have 3 hours a week for tech support onsite). Regardless, we've started directing people to use open source products when we can't order new software through TechSoup, or if they want software to use at home.
As an aside, because we don't have much in the way of tech support, sometimes the ISP (and our scary-slow DSL connection) is much more reliable than our servers! Perian Sully Collection Information and New Media Coordinator Judah L. Magnes Museum -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Leonard Steinbach Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:42 AM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others Thanks, Chuck and Ari, and I shall sit back a bit after this one... I appreciate Chuck's reference to reliance on the ISP, but wonder how really increased this would be? We still rely on ISPs for external email, web access, ticketing and others for pretty critical usefulness. Also (maybe this is one of those for better or worse things) google mail becomes more independent of an ISP than if email is simply outsourced to the ISP. I take the point about other applications creating a comfort level for remote applications, but email could also be a start.
