Presumably I'm not alone in this, but I find Stack Overflow a valuable resource for various bits of web development and I was wondering whether anyone has given any thought about proposing a Library Technology site to Stack Exchange's Area 51 (http://area51.stackexchange.com/)? Doing a search of the proposals shows there was one for 'Libraries and Information Science' but this closed 2 years ago as it didn't reach the required levels during the beta phase.

The reason I think this might be useful is that instead of individual places to go for help or raise questions (i.e. various mailing lists) there could be a 'one-stop' shop approach from which we could get help with LMSs, discovery layers, repository software etc. I appreciate though that certain vendors aren't particularly open (yes, Innovative I'm looking at you here) and might not like these things being discussed on an open forum.

Does anybody else think this might be useful? Would such a forum be shot down by all the vendors legalese wrapped up in their Terms and Conditions? Or are you happy with the way you go about getting help?

Joe

Joseph Schulkins| Systems Librarian| University of Liverpool Library| PO Box 123 | Liverpool L69 3DA | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> T 0151 794 3844

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