I got an interesting request a little while ago. A librarian wanted to know if she could get administrative access to a website I was running so she could see how Drupal works.
Naturally I had to say no, but it got me thinking that a "sandbox" version of Drupal -- based on a library website -- might be useful to people who wanted an idea of the "look and feel" of the thing.
Drupal has a module called "Demo" that makes sandboxes possible. So now I'm thinking this might form the basis of an interesting collaborative project.
The goal would be to create a model library website (representing a fictitious institution) that people would have administrative access to.
The website would have events, a list of resources, plus all the other accouterments a modern day fictitious institution would have.
If you'd like to help out or have any advice, feel free to leave a comment here. Or just email me.
I've already registered the domain, LibrarySandbox.org, though there's not much up there at the moment,
LEO
Comments
This would be a great exercise
I am a public "web" librarian and while my Drupal skills are coming along, this would be a great way to build them, while helping librarians as well.
Individual Web Hosting Accounts
A common sandbox sounds great but I'd like to suggest an alternative: individual web hosting accounts which will give you the freedom to explore all these open source software like Drupal, Moodle, WordPress, MediaWiki and so much more for almost nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. You'd have to at least give up two cups of Starbucks coffee a month.
If anyone is interested, the web hosting company I use is giving out 5 Christmas gift certificates to its customers who can then distribute it to whoever. I didn't use mine last year and wasn't thinking of using them this year but I thought someone in this group might. The voucher doesn't buy a free web hosting account but it gives you $20 discount off about $72 to $84 per year ($5.95 to 6.95 a month) web hosting charges, depending on your choice of service duration. That means you can get web hosting for as low as $52/yr ($4.33/mo). See what that gets you at http://www.siteground.com/hosting_features.htm. If you are interested, send me an email at glenda at softtester dot org. I'll send SiteGround your name and email and they will send you your $20 gift certificate.
I suggest this because I've heard many librarians complain that their ability to explore these tools depends a lot on administrative decisions, budget, systems people, etc. etc. etc. I think the real constraint is time - time to download, configure, tinker, create content and so on. But I found that it's worth it. My site - http://softtester.org - has really become a sandbox for me (though I wished it to have become a common sandbox). In any case, I do think that individual learners should still share and learn in common learning places such as the listserv and the website Leo has put up.
Glenda
Use virtualization
We have students (School of Info Resources and Library Science at the U of AZ) use virtualization (VMWare Server[free], Virtual PC for Windows[free], Parallels or VMWare Fusion for the MAC [about $75 each]) to install, configure and play with various applications, including Drupal, for our digital info mgmt certificate program. With this technique, they run a linux server (Ubuntu) in a window on their PC or Mac and hit the Drupal virtual machine from their browser all on lone local box. Drupal isn't that hard to install and configure and there's value in that, but it's also possible to distribute pre-configured virtual machines (in practice, the VM is just a large file) that people can plug and play if they have the virtualization software. We are currently working on a plan to create a virtual lab and perhaps make some pre-configured virtual machines available for download, but for now, you might want to experiment. Drop me a line if you have any questions (bfulton@email.arizona.edu).