Feature
g
place where you start to see some real benefits is around workflow efficiencies, spotting efficiencies, recommended workflows, and creating value-added recommendations to organisations about how to optimise their consumption of the software, or potentially back to the developer themselves to enhance or refine the software.’ Again, the practical examples of AI
are already beginning to be deployed within cloud based library systems. Burke gives the example of Alma’s AI agent DARA (Data Analysis Recommendations Assistant): ‘DARA gives us the ability to make smart suggestions. It looks at an individual library’s configuration, looks at other customers’ configurations, and comes back and says to the customer ‘We noticed that you’re not using SUSHI [Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative] around this database, but I can tell you that other libraries have successfully employed SUSHI – would you like me to do that for you?’
The long-term impact of Covid-19 The cloud was already firmly established within the library community before Covid-19 emerged, and while the pandemic has consolidated the benefits of the cloud in many people’s minds, it has also brought significant uncertainty about the future. Such uncertainty can often lead to reduced technological investment, although the particular circumstances surrounding the pandemic means a more complicated picture has emerged with investment in those technologies that meet an immediate need. Livingston notes: ‘In the last six months
there has been increased demand for cloud based solutions. In many respects that’s driven by very immediate needs around being able to manage applications, particularly when a campus or a public library facility may be shuttered because of the pandemic. Having the software locally deployed, but no staff able to maintain or use it creates lots of operation problems, so you see a strong demand
8 Research Information October/November 2020
for organisations to shift into cloud experiences. The demand tends to be higher in the current environment around services that are directly tied to distance learning and to remote services. So a large-scale purchase like an ILS is likely being paused, because of budgetary concerns and uncertainties, but cloud based applications like EZproxy, which are designed to help facilitate access to electronic resources, are in incredibly high demand at the moment.’ Burke has also seen a growing rise in
interest in facilitating access to digital content, as well as interest in leaving the legacy systems behind: ‘We’ve seen some immediate changes – for example, customers moving ahead with their acquisition of a cloud-based system because it enabled their staff to work from home. But the changes around content and content usage are going to be more profound. Being away from the print collections for a period of months has made ebooks and e-content much more prominent in everybody’s operations, as well as in the minds of users. So we’re going to see some long-lasting and fundamental changes.’
The continuing evolution of the cloud How the cloud develops in the future is not merely the preserve of the technology sector, but also legislators and the community of users. The role of legislators was raised by Livingston, who highlighted how increased regional variation, caused by regulatory requirements such as GDPR, created
“The cloud was already firmly established within the library
community before Covid-19 emerged’
challenges that needed to be overcome: ‘If European data has to stay in Europe, then it means those organizations cannot co-mingle data with institutions, for example, in North America. It’s going to be very interesting to see how technologies can form a bridge between those regional clouds in a way that allows the benefits of the technology to be shared without the data themselves being shared. It’s a very emerging space right now, so it’s one we’re very closely looking at.’ Burke highlighted the role of
community in the evolution of the cloud: ‘One of the most important lessons we’ve learned is that the cloud is better because of community. We put significant time and effort into building cloud solutions, but the ability for us to involve the community in our process has made those solutions better. In my mind, the importance of community will continue to grow.’ If there is one lesson that most people
will take from 2020, it is that making predictions about the future is extremely difficult, and while the cloud is here to stay, it will inevitably continue to evolve in unexpected ways. Ri
@researchinfo |
www.researchinformation.info
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54
