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.
No comments:
Post a Comment