Plone is a "user-friendly and powerful open source Content Management System". If you are trying to find a content management tool, you might want to know more about Plone. Visit this tool at: http://plone.org/

Jim writes: "Public Access Network Admin Controlled Environment Application (PANACEA) is a post-installation script that easily configures a machine running RedHat 6.x as a public access Web browsing kiosk for libraries and other community technology access centers." For more see the
PANACEA site.

Doug writes in: The Internet Station Manager (ISM) is open source software developed by the Grand Rapids Public Library for managing public Internet stations.

ISM, written in Perl, is a completely server based system which uses custom Apache web server modules and the MySQL database to provide login, management, and timeout services for public use Internet PCs in libraries. FreeBSD is the recommended server OS, but any Unix/Linux variants could be used.

See the ISM home page for details.

Gene Wilburn at the Royal Ontario Museum has written a HOW-TO for setting up public kiosks. While its current version doesn't cover several important issues for those wishing to lock down public workstations in libraries, he calls for contributions in those areas. The complete text of the Kiosk HOW-TO is online and waiting for your review.

Kevin writes in: "PATC (pat see) Public Access Terminal Control is now available at patc.sourceforge.net... PATC is open source [and consists of a] VB client and perl/cgi server."