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Chris Peters's blog

Mixed blessing: hiring new staff to implement grant projects

7 October 2010 - 8:38am | by Chris Peters
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Grants and hiring go hand-in-hand because our ambitions and our current capacity rarely line up precisely. One of the main points of grant programs is they let nonprofits and libraries stretch, build capacity, and accomplish goals beyond their ordinary means. Yet therein lies a conundrum: if a grant project is beyond your current capacity, and you tackle it anyway, you're committing yourself and your colleagues to the difficult work of hiring new staff.

Microsoft Is Ending Support for Windows SteadyState

6 October 2010 - 8:41am | by Chris Peters
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If you've followed our blog here at TechSoup for Libraries for any length of time, you know that we're fans of Windows Steady State, the free public access security tool from Microsoft.

Municipal Broadband is a promising response to underperforming or nonexistent ISPs

5 October 2010 - 8:58am | by Chris Peters
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When it comes to high-speed Internet access, we exhibit classic symptoms of addiction. That is, we need increasing levels of the desired substance (i.e. bandwidth) to get the same buzz.

Disk Cloning, Revisited

16 September 2010 - 8:27am | by Chris Peters
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Note: This post was updated on September 23, 2010 to correct factual errors concerning Symantec's disk imaging products.

We wrote about disk cloning (a.k.a. disk imaging) in our third Cookbook, but it's such a useful tool for libraries that it's worth revisiting the topic and sharing new developments in the field.

Disk Cloning, Revisited

16 September 2010 - 8:27am | by Chris Peters
Tags:

Note: This post was updated on September 23, 2010 to correct factual errors concerning Symantec's disk imaging products.

We wrote about disk cloning (a.k.a. disk imaging) in our third Cookbook, but it's such a useful tool for libraries that it's worth revisiting the topic and sharing new developments in the field.

Review of Technology Training Resources

14 September 2010 - 4:00pm | by Chris Peters
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We're keeping an eye on the steady stream of press releases coming from NTIA announcing approved BTOP grants. It's great to see the serious attention paid to digital divide issues by the federal government as well as the hundreds of nonprofits, libraries, and government agencies (both state and local) involved in implementing the grants.

Review of Technology Training Resources

14 September 2010 - 4:00pm | by Chris Peters
Tags:

We're keeping an eye on the steady stream of press releases coming from NTIA announcing approved BTOP grants. It's great to see the serious attention paid to digital divide issues by the federal government as well as the hundreds of nonprofits, libraries, and government agencies (both state and local) involved in implementing the grants.

NTIA Announcing Round One BTOP Grants

12 August 2010 - 11:57am | by Chris Peters
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In March of this year, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) began the ongoing, rolling announcement of the first round of grantees under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).

Net Neutrality Update

21 July 2010 - 2:13pm | by Chris Peters
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Net neutrality and related broadband policies are complex, contentious subjects because all parties realize that the decisions made now could determine the distribution of power on the Internet for decades while also shaping its progress and development. Both sides in this debate have rich, powerful allies. On the pro side is the High Tech Broadband Coalition, whose members include employees from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, and the Save the Internet Coalition. On the anti- side, phone companies and cable companies want the right to offer tiered services and charge higher rates for better-quality Internet access.

Information Health and Transliteracy

23 June 2010 - 10:05am | by Chris Peters
Tags: Is someone at your library following the work of the Knight Commission on Information Needs in a Democracy? Their research and reports provide lots of evidence supporting those of us who argue that our representatives need to support libraries,  good journalism, and a wider ecosystem of adult learning opportunities. If you're trying to build local support for your library, consider forwarding the Informing Communities report or a summary with its ten recommendations to key political players in your area.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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