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standards to describe their data makes it easier for libraries to work together to make their data better.’ She added that BIBFRAME data is
syndicated directly to partners like Google: ‘We launched a borrow option together in 2019 and now people searching in Google, in Australia, the United States and Canada can all find library books near them from the academic and public libraries and national libraries that surround them.’ This can be extended to other countries, she continued, once a specific geographical area has enough libraries that are publishing data consistently. Beyond Google, decentralising data on the web means libraries can be found anywhere they’d like to meet their community, whether it is faculty websites or community partner websites.
Navigating storm clouds Of course, this openness can raise concerns for libraries when they are thinking about moving their services and systems to the cloud. ‘Once you have your data available on the open web it can really be used for any purpose and so when libraries first approach us they ask about these solutions,’ observed Gonzalez. ‘They are curious to know very specific use cases because it can seem like there’s too many options for what they can do.’ Another concern that has sometimes
been raised about moving to the cloud is around ensuring ongoing access to the library’s data. ‘We address them through our data
preservation and policy plans,’ Gonzalez noted. ‘So not only are we providing a
host service, but we also, on behalf of our customers, take care of replicating that data and backing it up. So that if there ever were an issue, it could be restored,’. Long-term sustainability of platforms is an issue that Shaw in Lancaster is also following. ‘I’m conscious we might be buying something from a vendor who is cloud hosting it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they own their own cloud infrastructure. Very likely they’re using Amazon Web Services or something similar. It does raise some important questions about what would happen if the cloud provider fell over, or decided on taking a very different approach. This is probably something that ought to be a bit more of a consideration as we get deeper into the cloud environment.’ However, he added a counterpoint:
‘The other thing is weighing it against the alternative. If we’ve got IT ourselves on premises, on our servers, you can go and look at racks with spinning disks in and say, “they’re in this room that we’ve got locked”, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be hacked and aren’t vulnerable in some way.’
Clouds and climate Another aspect of cloud services that has come under increased scrutiny recently is environmental impact. ‘Sometimes there is a tendency to think digital means we’re not cutting down trees to make print books, therefore it’s greener,’ observed Shaw. ‘The reality is far more complicated and the carbon impact of the cloud can be quite considerable. It’s not just power generation involved in the devices that people are using. There is huge amounts of power generation involved in running cloud data servers and networks. Then there is the question of where that energy comes from, what carbon footprint does it have, how sustainable or renewable are any of the sources powering those. Shaw added: ‘Lancaster University
“Decentralising data on the web means libraries can be found anywhere they’d like to meet their community”
has declared a climate emergency and across the university we’re really being pushed in terms of how we’re going to respond and to make that a meaningful statement. It’s really pushing us to think more deeply about the impact of things like the cloud. We’re going to be engaging more with our vendors and making it a much more usual part of the process to ask questions about how they power their data centres, what work they have done to understand the environmental impacts of cloud for them, and what is their roadmap for reducing the environmental impact of their activities. I’d also like to work with our procurement team to look at how that can become a much larger part of the procurement process.’ Gonzalez agreed about the challenge:
‘Especially during the early adoption of cloud-based services, the environmental impact of cloud services was an issue, and it continues to be an issue. We specifically seek out data centres that are, on average, about three times more efficient than average data centres in the US. Our cloud provider partner is on a path to 100 using 100% renewable energy by 2025.’ She added that EBSCO also has an initiative, EBSCO Solar, which provides grants to public libraries so they can set up solar power for their buildings.
Geography and inequity Despite the widespread enthusiasm for cloud-based library services, adoption of them is not evenly distributed around the world. Gashaw Kebede, a freelance consultant in information, communication and knowledge management and previously an assistant professor at Addis Ababa University, highlighted the situation in his own country: ‘There are no cloud-based library services
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12 Research Information Summer 2022
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