Moving Libraries to the Cloud
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer, OCLC
Andrew Pace, Executive Director, Networked Library Services, OCLC

Nice slides showing app layers (wish they’d post their slides)

Data layer
app layer
XML layer

TechEssence.info for API library info

check worldcat.org/devnet

can pull worldcat searches as XML and remix

xISBN for FRBRizing

MAshed Libraries UK – hackfest

Worldcat hackathon NYPL

OCLC bootcamp for Code4Lib

Visualizing Worldcat Holding
thesecretmirror.com/code/api-fun-visualizing-holdings-locations

Compare Everywhere app for android phone includes library for books through Wordlcat API
(usage spiked after introduction – importance of mobile and of freeing data for machine use)

Andrew:

Why can’t we move the lib workflow to the network?

Chris Anderson- web is all about scale

started with resource sharing… the licensed journal lit….. cataloging…. consortial…. (open source ILS? universal circ policies? Pines?)

sharing cloud storage of google scanned documents

webscale computing helps invert the 70/30 ratio 70% building infrastructure, 30% propelling biz forward

Libs have concentrated on diffusion and syndication

now we’re seeing concentration…. shared discovery layer…. ERM/knowledge base…. repository…..

Eventually ALL library management workflow

do things at scale, in the cloud

Ebay did well:

1. Simplify features of commercial transaction

2. provided platform to allow buyers/sellers to industrialize workflow

3. reap benefits by scaling this up

Library Scale 166 billion transactions per year, 5000 transactions per second

OCLCs goal: build a service capable of that….

when using social networks, need scale…. social networking content would not work so well with just a few library users….
but we still want to handle our metadata locally

practical web scale for libs – looking for efficiency

despite our huge investments, we appear small and fragmented in comparison to search engines

a webscale strategy would provide libs with the ability to just focus on propelling biz dforward

lib management workflow isn’t unique– can stop treating it as such

extend what we’ve done for library users, we can do for staff as well

concentration creates network effects, opens up new world of processes of resource sharing

a single networked source for vendors/providers, e-resources identities, bib item-level details

reports w/real details (financial, collection, circulation)

fund codes, bulk purchases, collection shifting, consolidation patron notifications, identity management

More notes:
http://cil2009reporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/day-one-track-d-moving-libraries-to.html