LaRue on outliners

Jamie LaRue, director of the Douglas Public Library in Castle Rock, Colorado, is a big fan of outliners. "Between 1982 and 1991", he writes, "there flowered a golden age of software...[Outliners] have always fascinated me. Recently, I spent some twenty hours or so seeing what was still out there, and writing up my thoughts on what I found."

The original note on old outliner programs that still work generated lots of mail, and now LaRue reports on Tinderbox in the Brave New World of Outliner Software. He spent some time with the Tinderbox demo, and reports that "this set off a pretty intense day of intellectual stimulation....There was a time when automation saved libraries money. For the past 10 years, it has COST us money. (It has also, of course, allowed us to offer new services.) But I begin to see a way to make it more cost-effective."