Key issues
Accessible overviews of key current issues for library technology
Accessible overviews of key current issues for library technology
Cloud computing and library systems
There is an overlap between cloud computing and 'shared services'. The November 2011 (UKSG Conference) 'Shared Solutions' presentation (also video of presentation) by Ken Chad looks at definitions (of shared services and also the cloud computing) the rationale, issues & barriers, kinds of opportunities & services, impact and finally what we should do about shared services and ‘the cloud’
A Cloudy Forecast for Libraries. by Marshall Breeding. Information Today September 2011
From the article….
'Of all the technology trends that I’ve been following for the last couple of years, cloud computing continues to gain the most momentum and stands positioned to most radically transform the shape of library technology. I see that we’re at one of those major turning points where technology rounds a curve into a new vision of the mainstream'.
'Library automation products created in more recent years more fully embrace current-day architectures and technologies and are designed from their inception for delivery through multitenant software as a service. This new round of systems includes Ex Libris’ Alma, OCLC’s Web-scale Management Services, Kuali Foundation’s Kuali OLE, Serials Solutions’ recently announced Web-scale Management Solution, and Innovative Interfaces, Inc.’s Sierra. Others will most likely emerge. These products are at different stages of development. More than 32 early-adopter libraries using OCLC Web-scale Management Services were in production as of July 2011; the others are expected to see completion and implementation over the next year or two.
This new generation of products—more appropriately called something like library services platforms rather than integrated library systems—addresses the fundamental changes that libraries have experienced over the course of the last decade or so toward more engagement with electronic and digital content'.
The cloud is currently a question, not an answer. By Lorcan Dempsey. Lorcan Dempsey's weblog 23 June 2010
From the post……
'There are various ways of characterising cloud computing: see for example the now routine distinction between software-, platform- and infrastructure-as-a-service (explored in the Wikipedia article among other places).
Here is a simple way of thinking about moving library management applications like the ILS to the cloud. While these will continue to exist, taken successively they involve greater reconfiguration of existing processes. Note that I am limiting the discussion to library management applications in this way - a broader discussion might include a range of other interesting possibiliites …
Consider three simple stages …