Tuesday, December 29, 2009

PostgreSQL Training with Dan Scott

We've been busy setting up some Evergreen training with Equinox. In mid-January we'll receive some admin training as well as a 1.6 update, including Acquisitions.

We also need to learn how to write PostgreSQL queries, but Equinox doesn't offer a training class on this at this time. I've tried to write some queries on my own, based on my Sybase SQL knowledge, but what I've discovered is that the syntax doesn't translate well. Equinox recommended two PostgreSQL companies to us - I inquired, but soon discovered that the cost for these classes was too outrageously expensive for a non-profit like Bibliomation to swing.

Enter Dan Scott, relational database expert. Dan is systems librarian at Laurentian University, in Ontario. I had a chance to hear him speak at a one-day Lyrasis conference last October called "Open Source in your Library," and he was fantastic. Since he was able to answer some of my specific SQL query questions on the general Evergreen listserv, I thought he would be up to the challenge of teaching us what we needed to know about Postgres, so I emailed him. He has agreed to not only train us, but to customize the two-day class to our specific needs!

He writes:
[...]I would want to make the course materials available under a Creative Commons license so that others can build on & benefit from the content. I think it would make a nice complement to the Evergreen developer workshop, and a great contribution to the community.

We need to give him some time to prepare his course materials, but we are hoping to have him down here sometime before two of our developmental partner libraries go live on Evergreen the first week in March 2010.

Three cheers for Dan Scott!

Amy
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Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
terlagaATbiblioDOTorg

2 comments:

Lynn said...

This is wonderful. I am so pleased when I hear people talk about Creative Commons. Sharing, sharing, sharing...Thanks Dan!

Eric said...

Sweet! Thanks Dan.