D103: Moving Libraries to the Cloud

Session D103
Roy Tennant -Moving Libraries to the Cloud

What are you talking about? A cloud is a common metaphor for the Internet
Cloud computing: style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet (Wikipedia)

incorporates the concepts of:
-infrastructure as a service (hardware capacity)
-platform as a service (OS, "solution stacks")
-software as a service (applications)

moving "to the cloud" means moving computing tasks from in-house hardware & software to resources on the net

potential benefits
-low barriers to entry
-pay as you go instead of capital investment
-no need to have local server capacity
-software upgrades are automatic
-saves staff

potential drawbacks
-lack of complete control
-reliance on network connectivity and speed

the cloud from a business perspective
-Amazon simple storage service (Amazon S3)
-Amazon elastic compute cloud (Amazon EC2)

so what about libraries?
an example: cataloging
OCLC's "expert community" experiment -allowing "wiki-like" editing of WorldCat records

machine services for libraries in the cloud
API-based applications (techessence.info ; worldcat.org/devnet)

ways libraries are benefiting from moving data to the cloud
WorldCat search API and Facebook
WorldCat citations in Facebook (citemeapp)
terminology services for smarter searches -adds other terms to searches that are from controlled vocabulary
WorldCat WordPress widget (Karen Coombs)
mobile web applications
Android application: CompareEverywhere (compare item prices)

Building Webscale for Library Management -Andrew K. Pace
jet lag is a lot like drunkenness, but without the confidence.
introduction to "webscale"
Library Scale
Practical webscale

webscale : the web is all about scale, finding ways to attract the most users for centraolized resources, spreading those costs over larger and larger audiences as the technology gets more and more capable
resource sharing
cataloging
licensed journal literature
consortial

webscale value proposition: on average, businesses spend 70% of their time building and maintaining and worrying about infrastructure, and 30% of their time focused on the ideas that propel their business forward -web-scale computing can reverse the ratio

web 2.0?
there is a major theme of web 2.0 that people haven't yet tweaked to. It's really about data and who owns and controls, or gives access to a class of data

repository?
shared discovery layer (shared catalogs, worldcat local)
ERM/knowledge base
library management

Libraries Scale
if only circulation were like buying & selling on eBay...
annual transactions
-libraries worldwide 1,212,383
-transactions per year, about 5,000 transactions per second
not talking about software as a service

Practical webscale for libraries
looking for efficiency in mgmt workflows
-libraries have a fragmented face on the web
a webscale strategy would provide libs w/ computer hardware & software infrasturcture on the web, where they could use the workflow apps they need

why do it? potential benefits of network-level lib inventory control & coll. mgmt incl. patron satisfaction & library visibility on the web, staff worklfow improvements, & financial savings.
network effects
-shared cataloging & resource sharing & imagine it in the context of lib mgmt (single networked source for vendors/providers, e-resource identities, and bibliographic item-level details; etc.)

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. -W. Edwards Deming