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[applause]
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Thank you very much.
Next step is Stefan Weil
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talking about PalMA and Debian
in Mannheim.
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Thanks. Hello and welcome everybody.
My name is Stefan Weil,
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and I am going to tell you about a
Debian based freeware development
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at Mannheim University Library.
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Large parts of our library are located in
Mannheim Palace,
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and there we transformed a former reading
room into a modern learning center
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which opened in spring last year.
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This learning center provides different
kinds of places for working in groups,
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and most of them have a large monitor
where the group members can share
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their presentations and any documents.
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Students bring their own devices -
laptops, smartphones or tablet computers.
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They should be able to use the team
monitors by wireless LAN,
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without any cables.
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Existing solutions did not match
our requirements,
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so we wrapped existing technology in a new
web application which we called PalMA.
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The team monitor shows some short
instructions how to use PalMA
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(which is an abbreviation of
"Present and learn in Mannheim").
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Other libraries which adapted PalMA later
have chosen a different name like
-
SPrinT (which stands for
"Study and present in teams").
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As soon as a user connects to the
PalMA URL, he or she gets a web interface
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which controls all aspects of PalMA:
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This is what the user sees in the browser,
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and in the upper right corner, you
see the connected group members,
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then the user can show web pages
in the left lower corner
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on the team monitor.
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He can upload different kinds of files
(also in the left corner) for displaying
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on the team monitor, or he can use
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screen mirroring of the local display
on the team monitor.
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The team monitor can show up to
4 different windows at a time
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by changing the screen layout.
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You see this in the left part:
there are 5 different screen layouts.
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Each window supports scrolling and
zooming and other operations
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via the web interface.
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The web user interface is available
in several languages,
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most of them were contributed
by students of our university.
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Each PalMA monitor is controlled by a
Debian GNU Linux system
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running a display server, a window
manager, web server and different kinds
-
of viewer applications which are
started on demand.
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The user runs a web browser and optionally
a VNC server for screen mirroring. Today,
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PalMA is usable in a trusted environment
like a university or private network.
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At least 7 libraries currently use it
for group working places.
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Nevertheless we believe that PalMA
can be improved further
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and that there are more useful
applications for PalMA.
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You can find more information
on our website and also on GitHub.
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And I'd be happy to get your feedback or
new contributions for PalMA.
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Maybe there are also Debian developers
who are willing to support special
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software for libraries.
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In any case, just drop me an e-mail.
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Thanks for your attention.
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[applause]