As most of you know I have been the ALUG Librarian now for some time.
However as of sometime around Christmas/Early next year I will be moving to a house with one less bedroom and I think I may run into problems storing the books, Also the house I am moving to is likely to be a building site for some time and really the less things I have around the easier life will be.
Therefore this is a call for a new librarian to stand up or for us to discuss the future of the library.
I am completely happy to continue to host and maintain the online library catalogue..it is only the actual storage of the books that might present a problem. This might actually also make more sense if someone who attends the meetings more regularly than me took over.
Also this might be a good time to discuss the future of the library, at the moment and since I took over it is almost completely inactive. Part of this is I think due to the logistics of the books being in Bury St Edmunds in the possession of a member who rarely attends meets but mostly I think because the collection is quite out of date.
The O'Reilly group membership has been processed and we have received exactly one book. To receive more free we really need to get something up to promote the books (or at least review them on our site) or actually request specific books and see what happens. There is also a group discount for members who want to purchase books, but I have not had time to figure out the logistics of this.
These bits would require more time than I currently have whilst amongst house clearing/renovation to get set up but would hopefully result in a selection of up to date books for the library.
Another option is to prune the existing collection somewhat to a size where it is more manageable for a member to take over (or perhaps even for me to continue to manage) and then for me or someone else to take steps to get some book donations to replace the purged books with more recent/more interesting books.
Alternatively with minimal effort on my part the online library can support a distributed library where members share responsibility for storing the books and the loan is "permanent" until a member leaves or someone else wants to borrow it. The site can then mail the relevant person for each book to tell them that someone else wants to borrow it etc.
Your collective thoughts and/or offers to store the library as it stands would be appreciated.