(Guest blog post from Mrs. Irene Sachs, Reader Services Librarian, Mzuzu University Library, Mzuzu, Malawi. This workshop was part of the eIFL-FOSS Skills and Tools Workshops initiative.)

The Malawi Library and Information Consortium (MALICO) organised a 4-day workshop on the installation and use of Debian GNU/Linux servers, which was held at Mzuzu University, Mzuzu, Malawi, from 4 to 7 August 2009. Debian GNU/Linux is the preferred deployment environment for Koha, the FOSS ILS that Mzuzu University Library has recently piloted and to which it has migrated. This workshop, therefore, served as both advanced training on Debian GNU/Linux for Mzuzu University Library staff as well as base level training for library IT staff across the MALICO consortium with the hope of facilitating future migrations of other libraries to the Koha ILS.

Participants in the workshop were drawn from 9 different institutions, most of whom requested that they be able to send two representatives to the training event due to the importance of Koha for the future development of libraries in Malawi.

In order to ensure that all participants were able to work with computers of sufficient capacity for the training, a number of computers from across the campus were relocated to the "American Corner", a computing resource centre adjacent to Mzuzu University Library.

At the conclusion of the workshop, all participants were presented with a Certificate of Completion by the Mzuzu University Librarian, Professor Joseph Uta.

At least two outcomes from the workshop are significant. First is the need for a follow-up day of trouble shooting for the participants who returned to their institutions and have been installing Debian GNU/Linux locally. Second is the need for a Debian GNU/Linux User Group within MALICO in order to ensure continued mutual support for these deployments.


Mrs. Irene Sachs
Reader Services Librarian
Mzuzu University Library