title: Package management running R on a shared server
body: <p>some background: I'm a fairly beginning sysadmin maintaining the server for our department. The server houses several VM's, mostly Ubuntu SE 12.04, usually with a separate VM per project. </p>
  
  <p>One of the tools we use is R and RStudio, also server edition. I've set this up so everyone can access it through their browser, but I'm still wondering what the best way would be to deal with package management. Ideally, I will have one folder/library with our "common" packages, which are common in many projects and use cases. I would admin this library, since I'm the only user in sudo. My colleagues should be able to add packages on a case-by-case basis in their "personal" R folders, that get checked as a backup in case a certain package is not available in our main folder.</p>
  
  <p>My question has a few parts:
  - Is this actually a viable way to set this up?
  - How would I configure this?
  - Is there a way to easily automate this library for use in other VM's?</p>
  
  <p>I have a similar question pertaining to Python, but maybe I should make a new question for that..</p>