Radical or just catching up?

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/software/academic-consortium-makes-radical-shift-away-from-ils/ (viewed 21 Dec 2012)

Old habits die hard and when I saw this article I just felt that I needed to comment on it. I am late coming to library studies having spent over 20 years working in the business world; but one thing I know works is centralised offsite storage for computer programs and records.

The agreement between Ex Libris and the Orbis Cascade Alliance to shift resource management from individual locally-based systems to a shared cloud-based system takes the libraries in the consortium to the forefront of technology. Resource sharing is the obvious benefit, but opportunities for collaboration and enrichment of systems and technologies should not be ignored.

Business systems have long benefited from increased functionality in one area due to technical work undertaken in another area. When the same system is available to everyone, collaborative work between staff is facilitated and everyone benefits when the results are made available.

The new cloud-based LMS should offer these same opportunities and benefits to the consortium libraries where circulation and collection data is available to all. Technical collaboration between staff should be easier as their knowledge expands and opportunities to develop the functionality of the system will present themselves in the future.

While libraries are lagging behind business with this innovation, they will not take long to catch up as other consortia see the benefits of centralised resource sharing. The advantages of being able to share expertise, workflow and collection management will persuade other groups to move to the cloud and the next generation LMS platforms.  

Latest Read

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

I was excited to pick up this book from my local Library, as I had really enjoyed Wolf Hall a couple of years ago. Someone from work lent me their copy of Wolf Hall and I was so interested in Thomas Cromwell that I bought Robert Hutchinson’s biography, just so that I could learn more about him. Hilary Mantel’s imagined Cromwell seems a bit more human than the Cromwell described in the biography.

Bring up the Bodies did not disappoint. I was taken straight back to where we finished up last time and immediately drawn into the problem of how to give the King what he wants. I was taken straight back to the ambiguous nature of Cromwell’s place at court and his treatment at the hands of various courtiers.

One of the things that I loved about Wolf Hall was how Hilary Mantel gave depth and character to Thomas Cromwell, usually reviled as a villain. He seemed to be at war with himself for much of the book and even when he was remembering the past, there was some conflict between actuality and reminiscence.

The second instalment in Hilary Mantel’s imagined life of Thomas Cromwell is much more contained given that the events take place over a relatively short space of time. In Bring up the Bodies, we see less of Cromwell’s accumulation of wealth and property as he concentrates on the task at hand. The fraught relationship with Norfolk is still there, as is the friendship with Chapuys.

I look forward to the next story as Cromwell becomes more and more embroiled in the king’s business and as Hilary Mantel continues to imagine a much more rounded personality for him than the one usually portrayed.