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Ah, LaTeX. I dabbled in it 30 years ago, and it's perpetually too far down my list of things to actually learn it. I've always treated it as a fantastic tool that I am happy to help folks acquire and willing to cursorily support, but beyond that, they need to learn and become the experts. That is not unlike a lot of other software in that there are limits to what we are willing to teach/support. We can't take an all-or-nothing approach to these things; there must be a grey area in the middle. How do you deal with users who want to create Office macros for example? For all power-user features/software, I have to assume that all but the most well-funded IT departments/libraries either: 1. block features/software (and stifle potential user creativity/production). 2. point users in the general direction and possibly link to some popular/useful, public documentation. In reality, it is probably a mix of those two. Some applications/features are much more dangerous and likely to create legal issues than others and should be blocked. At the same time, *fully* supporting every feature of a limited whitelist of software is both a Sisyphean task and antithetical to the learning and exploration goals of libraries and/or academia. That's my $.02, Erich On Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 11:32, Dan Johnson eloquently inscribed: > Dear List, > > How do you all deal with LaTeX? The LaTeX Project describes it as a > "high-quality typesetting system," but it *looks* similar to a few > different software paradigms, and this makes it hard to figure out who on a > university campus should be supporting it. > > For example, one could make the case that it's an advanced, low-level form > of word processing, which should therefore be supported with training and > problem solving by central IT, who cover Microsoft Word and Google Docs. > But it's much more than WYSIWYG word processing, and support for IT would > be a very heavy lift. > > So maybe instead you think of it as a markup system. In that case, perhaps > it's the library's digital scholarship center that should be providing > support. Yet, it's not really used for the purposes of scholarly annotation > and digital presentation of primary sources that TEI is. > > Since it's used for creating beautifully-looking articles and books, > perhaps it's a scholarly communication tool, and hence the schol comm > division of the library should support it. But the biggest use case may be > dissertation formatting, in which case perhaps a university's graduate > school or office of research should take charge (especially if they provide > a dissertation template). > > But then, the software is especially good at formatting mathematical > notations, and indeed, the vast majority of dissertations submitted with > LaTeX formatting come from the school of science, so perhaps it is > scientific computing software. In that case, maybe the college of science's > departmental IT units should bear the brunt of support. > > The final option, it seems to me, is to call it "just one of those very > helpful things," like regex, that you won't see in any formal or informal > learning environment, and so you have to figure it out on your own to be in > the know. > > How do you all parcel this out? > > Best, > Dan >