Ex Libris General Question & Answers

[live-blog IGeLU Conference 2013, Berlin - please forgive typos etc.]

Q: Read-only access to the Alma configuration screens availability?
A: First let me explain what this is: it refers to the process during implementation, ExLibris performs the configuration in the first instance but once the customer has received the Certification Training, ExLibris doesn't do this anymore. This at the moment is near the end of the implementation just before Alma goes live. We've received this as an important feedback, that people want more transparancy and understand better the configuration options during implementation. By the end of the year we will have a read-only option for the configuration. This will first be at the fulfilment level. This will be incorporated as part of the permissions based on roles.

Q: Data quality and how to re-use cataloging already done is important. What is happening with the plans for the Alma community zone where we expect we should be able to find most records instead of searching them via external sources?
A: It's part of our key goals to improve efficiencies, focus on enabling streamlined sharing. We've started this by modelling this, we're at the stage where we work with the policies and cataloguing advisory group and expect to get results towards the end of the year. We presented the suggested model now and you will recognise real efficiencies in processes. We are finalising the development of those recommendations.

Q: Plans to share EzProxy configurations in the community zone?
A: The community zone isn't planned for that, but it's a good question and we should think about that.

Q: When can we expect to see license information in Alma's uResolver? (obligation to display copyright information in e-resources)? Will we ba able to rename fields or add local terms to be added to the uResolver copyright information when finally built out?
A: The option to show the licensing info is planned for the 2nd quarter of 2014. We will allow to adjust the wording of those fields to be more user friendly. This is in our roadmap.

Q: Cloud safety - What if anything happens to a Data Center? How will Ex Libris restore services to customers whose data and applications are housed in the Cloud?
A: We're aware that out Cloud is a lot of responsibility. We've looked at all the details for hardware, using the best hosting that we can find. We have 6 internet providers providing to the site, multiple firewalls, applications designed specifically and testing in that way. We've upgraded our backup, we used to do it on tape but now we do it on disc offsite. The ability to restore from there to another location would be much quicker than in the past. We have multiple ways to resolve such issues. It's easier to restore from site, but we can do it differently. Restoring is not a simple process. In a catastrophic situation, it would be less than a year... But more like a week...

Q: When can we finally expect daily analytics for Alma?
A: We've just announced that this is near release. It's been rolled out in 10 institutions of the US as part of the testing and it should be available to all customers by mid-October. The short answer is that it's already there.

Q: WorldShare Management Services is OCLC's response to Alma. Although Alma is more mature, given WorldCat as the primary cataloguing datase of WMS do youreally think it makes sense to build a second (semi-)global Bib library within Alma?
A: We want to build efficiencies in processes, not to re-build WorldCat, which was designed a few decdes ago. We're looking into the future. We want to integrate any existing service that is useful to you. Such environments includes WorldCat and this can be included in Alma. Wheter you're an alone-institution or part of a consortium, integration is possible. Others who don't work with WC may find new efficiencies in Alma.

Q: OCLC has recently published  info about the WC metadata API. What about ExLibris, planning to integrate in Alma (looks like a good replacement for Z39.50)?
A: We've started discussion with OCLC about this, it's on its way

Q: UStat is the first SaaS component from ExLibris. How long will it remain as a separate product for sfx users? Will it's functionalities be integrated in Alma?
A: Alma anlytics will have greater functionalities

Q: Does Salesforce offer a Claud Status page in order to indicate when the servesr hosting Salsefoce CRM are down?
A: We will post in our Customer portal page the status of our services, including Salesforce

Q: The Ex Libris Customer Center platform is not easy to search, after developping such a good product like Primo, can we expect the same for the Customer Centre?
A: Priority is on services to users but we will look to improve the search engine for the Customer Centre next year

Q:With OA issues, this changes how content is made available. Ins SFX, with effect in Primo, we work at Journal level but OA is at article level, how will ExLibris manage this?
A: Part of our next linking project is to provide this info to the link resolvers

Q: Are e-book loans sheduled in any ExL software?
A: This is more of a question for vendors and we'd be interested to see vendors' models

Q: How far did the implementation of RDA in combination with Aleph & Alma proceed?
A: Voyager team work closely with the Library of Congress team, Aleph didn't need to do any configuraiotn work and Alma cataloguing support will be finalised in the next few months. Next steps: all eyes on on bibFrame but they've not agreed to implement FRBR they're working on a new model also don't think MARC21 should be the standard, so it's too soon to say on how we'll move forward on this question.

Q: Primo was launched as part of the strategy to decouple the frontend from the backend.Many primo services are availabolo only to Alma users and the front end of Alma *is* Primo, could you expand on this strategic shift to a monolithic (or symbiotic) couple?
A: It's tactical/pragmatic rather than strategic. The dicoupling process between front and back end are still relevant, both Primo and Alma can enable 3rd party component. Next gen framework is still relatively young, we develop a lot of user case but we still don't have enough best practice etc. but it will come. Tightly connected interaction between A & P is based on interfaces

Q: Marketplace for metadata requires cooperation between all parties. What about collaboration with EBSCO? Other discovery tools seems to be able to agree with each other to share data. Why not Ex Libris?
A: Good news is that it becomes more apparent what's going on and that EBSCO doesn't enable the subscription based index for discovery services such as Primo. You have to buy EDS to access EBSCO content so you are told to buy another discovery system. Otherwise it would be through API. Indexing is the best way to do it but they offer their service through API. This is a problem especially for those of you who pay for this content. We find it hard to find a way around it. In terms of other deals, when it comes to conent and aggregators such as EBSCO, their content is not unique and we are making good progress to provide alternatives. We sign deals with publishers.

Alma - early adopters' experience

Notes from IGeLU 2013 Conference, Berlin

University of Bolzano Library

Reasons to adopt Alma: Future oriented solution for whole integration of all resources in every phase of the life-cycle, support for library processes (core business) including analytics, networking & best practice exchange of similar libraries etc. Joined at an early stage , so needed flexibility & change management. Took opportunity to simplify rules & policies in the data migration process.

Timeline went from April 2012 (Alma training) to Jan 2013 (Alma live). Started at the circulation/fulfillment stage, even if it sounds strange, it was good to manage staff anxiety, followed by cataloguing and rest of the migration (electronic resources etc.).In the first months, work on workflow revisions, configuration revisions, changing opinion about things thought of before moving to Alma, troubleshooting, optimisation etc. Resource management area to clean up records etc. More recently work on analytics.

Positive points and changes: Overal positive experience, good cooperation despite time pressure, solution-oriented and pragmatic approach. Lessons learned are that Cloud Computing requires a new approach to software, so monthly updates, no traditional test environment so all change is made in production. Occuring problems have to be notified "to the Cloud" instead of IT department. Reporting and controlling is improved with positive impact on the organisation in decision-making. Standardised workflows. Cleaning up work requires manual input.

Open and critical issues: Activation of electronic resources is very complexe (some databases are still missing), lack of functionalities of Alma Uresolver, still developments required for analytics, batch updates and set creation not always easy, migration of subscriptions and entering of acquisitions data, customisation in workflows, cataloguing or display of data is still needed, are the major points.

Northeastern University Boston

Why Alma? System that can handle electronic resources, better analytics, no local hardware maintenance, financial incentive to become an early adopter.

Timeline and challenges: April to July 2013 for actual implementation, with a 9-month overall period, quite challenging! Mostly because there was no on-site visit, missing context in WebEx training, missing and developing data migration documentation, confusing project management plans. Other main challenge was that configurating Alma without it going live wasn't available.

Two months live... Optimistic about the future of Alma, happy to have hot fixes and monthly release cycle, forces to look at workflows, already impressed with analytics. Biggest disappointment is in e-resource management, in particular, Uresolver still needs lots of customisation, lack of clarity about the knowledge base (same as sfx?) portfolio management is difficult and time-consuming, missing stability and flexibility in licensing. In addition, missing flexibility & customisation options in user roles & permissions, order records, licensing and notices (can only be customised at the institutional, not library, level). The software is not intuitive, some workflows are clunky. However, still very optimistic! Happyy to work with Ex Libris to improve it and to build a strong community.

Next geneeration Library Services - Emerging roles and opportunities

Oren Beit-Arie, Chief Strategy Officer Ex Libris
[live-blog IGeLU Conference 2013, Berlin - please forgive typos etc.]

The context in which we operate today is significant, increase in scale and diversity of content type, increase in cost especially serials, economic challenges in many institutions, increase scholarly research and learning (e.g. MOOCS), increased pressure and competition for library services etc. there is also a greater value of the value of libraries. We are also moving increasingly on Cloud delivery, so this is our framework.

We started developing it about 6-7 years ago, including sfx, the knowledge base, Primo and Alma. So we supported both the front end and the backend. Collections in the way that library built them in the past is changing, we're moving away from the "bigger is better" and from ownership and we're going more towards access. Many libraries are paying attention to fulfilment rather than selection, that means that it's more geared towards the information need of the user. That means also moving from the "just-in-case" to the "just-in-time". The economy around the research activities is also changing, there are more cases in which access would be free but there is more attention towards the economy of the creation of content, i.e. who will pay for the collections? Is it the reader, the researcher, the library?

Data services: The goal is to maximise the benefits of sharing, optimise management and discoverability. The two areas of focus is the Alma community zone and the next generation linking, of which I won't talk very much today, except that there are paradigms of linking, for example the sfx knowledge base, it's about pre-computered strored links at the article level. The notion of the Alma community zone was introduced a few years ago because there was a need for creating more efficient management tools and this needs to be done in the library context, so the community catalogue in the community zone enables libraries to add to shared content, information to the user community, to add or use vendor information etc. so the bibliographic control is improved. By creating a community environment, we support collaboration.

All this information that is shared is made readily available for discovery services in a streamlined way, so that you shouldn't have to work hard to enable this. It is a work in progress, especially for something like e-books. We work with the advisory group, which is composed of a broad number of represenatatives of users from around the world and this group is helping us to pin down the model that works best for all (see yesterday's session).

Linked data has the potential to extend the level of sharing of knowledge between libraries and external sources. In libraries we are very collaborative within our own island, but linked data has a greater promise. We are interested in this, we think this concept is tremendously important for the content that libraries created and to outreach to external content. For example an activity we're involved in is DME which stands for Digitised Manuscripts to Europeana and we are testing this, it's an important activity that involves big players such as Google. Other examples include NISO bibliographic framework project, the W3C schema bib extend community group (Shlomo), the LC bibframe initiative etc.

Other things we are involved in is that we try to evaluate trends and needs in education and try to build support for those needs by creating new platforms. Users perceive (e)resources as free we-bresources ("found it in Google"), the value of access to electronic content is not recognised by users, and in this realm there is lack of recognition of the role of libraries. It is paradoxical because there is something good about this, you want the user to get to content as soon and easily as possible but the libraries are getting pushed aside because users are not acknowledging their involvement and this could impact on funding for libraries. Our project enables libraries to brand those products developed to your institutional needs so they are customised by your library and build awareness of your library. It is still in pilot stage, we haven't yet talked about it publicly. (See Academic Libraries existence at risk, suggested by @chrpr)

We are also taking initiative for open access because we are aware of the significant drive toward OA around the world. Publishers are starting to respond, maybe not always in the way we'd like to but there is a lot of activity around OA. We are following the debates especially between green and gold OA because we need to be aware of what it going on. CHORUS is a publisher initiative that is about enforcing the OA mandate by publishers, is this how we want the world to be modelled in the future, is it an opportunity for libraries? We want to discuss this with you and I would encourage you to come and speak to us about this. We are in a transition period. Primo is enabling OA and when we are looking at this, it raises an important question. Some content is totally open with unrestricted access and discovery, others have unrestricted discovery but restricted access. There is some bad stuff out there, there is closed access and closed discovery and this is not just about us. Do academics/researchers who create content understand that some of their output is blocked out? So there are lots of opportunities to create better management of OA. When we talk of different models for OA, we see that many librarires are engaging in this.

Cloud Computing MmIT Conference 2013

Just back from attending the MmIT CloudBusting conference in Sheffield, I took extensive notes which were meant to be "live-blogged" but for various reasons (mostly technical and being ever so slightly disorganised), I wasn't able to post them on the day. However, notes are available so here goes (with usual caveats, i.e. potential errors etc. so comments/corrections welcome):

Content of this blog post:

• Welcome by Leo Appleton
• Keynote presentation by Karen Blakeman
• Lise Robinson OCLC
• Rapid fire sessions
• Bethan Ruddock MIMAS
• Panel questions and answers

The programme of the conference can be found here.

Welcome by Leo Appleton, Uni of Sheffield, IT director 

Theme of this conference: Cloud busting. Given the number of people we have here today, we think we’ve selected a relevant theme. The extent of what cloud means to libraries is what we intend to get out of this conference. There is a green slip in the welcome pack to write down questions to submit to the panel for the closing Q&A sessions. 

Welcome to Sheffield under the sun (we had snow one week ago). I want to tell you why we did the move to the Cloud. The Cloud is everywhere, we all have various devices, do shopping online etc., this brings a lot of expectations. User interfaces are easy to use, we expect things to work all the time. If it does break we expect support 24hrs a day. This expectation is also on mobile devices. Most of the services we deliver is actually in the hands of service providers and we have very little say. These are some of the challenges that we face. We also have to do things overnight, over the weekend etc. It’s so much part of our lives, we are so used to it.

We moved first to the Cloud for emails. We were one of the 1^st unis to go completely Google for staff and students. We’ve been running like that for about 2 years. I think we provide a much better service. When Google goes down for one hour it’s on the news whereas, we once lost emails for 3 days, that would be unacceptable now.

It's not a cost cutting exercise, we have saved money but that wasn’t the main reason. It’s about providing better services, more available and user friendly.

Keynote: Karen Blakeman, RBA Information Services

Searching in the Cloud, bright new dawn or storm weather (view slides to the presentation)

Delighted to be in sunny Sheffield compared to cloudy Reading! I have my own company of information services. I don’t have access to large database most of my research has to be done in the Cloud and  I have to be creative to gain access to some papers, mostly it’s contacting publishers an asking them.The issues of the Cloud, and benefits are very much the same as a large organisation. We want to see where we’re coming from and in a way it’s almost like going back.

The Cloud definitions: Stuff that is out there, it can be all sorts, anything in electronic form available on the web. Another definition is data & services that are serviced and accessible via the web so not just publicly available sources but your own papers and documentation that you need to run your organisation is hosted outside in a single interface (?).

If you remember when we had tape etc. you had to host them, pick the one data source key to your business. The real progress then was having only one device like the telephone, it gave you access to everything that was available, you were no longer restricted to what you had in-house. There was much more data that you could access. It’s the same now. The key is how you get to it. The internet was a possible way of accessing these databases. Initially we were still using dial-up methods etc. We had a pack of telecom software to access the info. In 1994 netscape came, until then stuff sat on floppy disc, it was telnetting, so point and click was key then. Now fast forwarding to my beauty, my android. From this I can access everything, forget the laptop, with my android I can quickly tweet people etc.

So Cloud computing is not really new, the main difference is publicly available data. E.g. students working at a distant location, you can access information outside of a physical location. Federated search engines, a lot of you use them. There are different hosts, they go out identifying databases, resources that are relevant and develop easy to use interfaces. Not only text, but visualisation, images, clouds of data etc. There’s lots going on in the presentation of data. Wonderful links to resources, in and outside of an institution. Large amount of resources outside that you can link to your own info.E.g. repository searches, open url, open access, etc., I won’t go into details but the problem is that you may be able to find it but not access it. There’s a large amount of different types of info.

My wonderful android is linked to my Google account so everything is synchronised. It also means I’ve got backups. I have access to all my various accounts, my apps, calendar, Googlemail, Evernote account, Mendeley etc. and it doesn’t matter what device I’m using.  I can access my events etc. and don’t even need to print my tickets because I can just show the screen. Mobile is the way forward, it doesn’t matter what platform, it is it’s all out there.

My question is: where’s my stuff? This wasn’t a problem with my desktop, I had a file manager, or file locater, that’s when you really don’t remember where stuff is. But for the Cloud it doesn’t work. Google tools etc. are not designed for real time stuff, but designed for indexing stuff. There are other services designed for that, but there’re limited, e.g. apps limit the amount of data you can pull back. E.g. topsy is a good one, or there’s the good old fashioned rss but it’s not even really real time.

So how do I find my own stuff. CloudMagic does that but the downside is you allow it access to your account. I did this for Facebook, twitter etc. then I panicked, it’s a free service, what are they going to do with my data? I pulled the plug and changed my password. So what’s the reputation, where is the data stored, what security etc. are all important questions. If like me you travel a lot, you might get wifi or not, battery is a problem etc. so Cloud is great but when you’re mobile, you will have these kinds of problems. Stuff will be unavailable. You don’t know what’s going behind the scenes. Privacy glitches happen. Now security is tighter but we need to be aware they can occur with any system. There will always be leaks, it’s a case of risk assessment.

With broadband we made the assumption everyone has a fast connection, but it’s not always the case. What’s the policy regarding backups? What if everything goes wrong? Do we need to keep local backups? Don’t assume that because your stuff is in the Cloud it will be well taken care of. I always have my own backups just in case.

Obfuscation, fragmentation, isolation are important words. Obfuscation if you read contracts (do you read them?), we don’t because it’s a nightmare to try and read them but it’s concerning that there is a blur of boundaries between public and private. Google is trying to combine your own personal info with institutional info with search etc. If you search it will give priority to content from your contacts in Google+. Or there are situations where information only comes from the circles you belong to, this touches to problems of confidentiality. You have to be very careful even when doing a simple search, especially if you’re logged in.

Personal information is another tricky aspect. Again if searching within your own circles all the information may not be public, but it’s not always obvious. So we need to think how much we will incorporate in our interfaces for our users. Another example is a facebook local group, there’s a mixture of information and people are not always aware of the implications and differences. Some parts of the pages are publicly available, others are only for members.

There’s also an assumption that we are all well connected on the internet. Having been online doesn’t mean that we are well connected. A big chunk of users don’t have a good connection, in some parts there is no internet at all. This applies to school children, students etc. So we should keep things simple, not everyone has got megabus broadband with powerful downloading capabilities.

Lise Robinson, product manager OCLC

“Something good is going to happen: an overview of developing a cloud based solution”

I am the product manager in UK and Ireland for OCLC WorldShare, my approach for this workshop is quite personal, about my experiences of working at OCLC, concerns about cloud based data management. So not a sales pitch but a personal approach. I will have questions for you at the end because I want to get feedback from users.

I am a librarian and have been working for LMS for a number of years. I needed to integrate Dr Who in my talk, I’m very excited after Saturday’s episode. Everyone is interested in the Cloud and the episode was about that, in a scary way. It’s very sexy and everyone wants to know about this. But at OCLC we’ve been doing it for 40 years. When OCLC was formed, the centre of what they’ve done is WorldCat. It’s a universal library catalogue and has always been hosted. 

Why have OCLC gone into the idea of a hosted platform? Today’s library environment looks like a model of interlinked services, data etc. We all use similar systems with acquisitions, finances etc. and the systems have become messy and libraries isolated. The idea of webscale is that by bringing the libraries together, it’s giving us better services. I have a positive look about what’s going on in the Cloud. The model we follow is one that you see being successful with names you know such as e-bay, amazon, facebook etc. It’s the idea that libraries come together to form a community because they want to do something together at webscale, bringing together the data and applications, the community gives you the power and the sharing abilities. It’s made possible by Cloud computing. It’s helping the sharing and re-use. 

When WorldShare Management started from scratch we looked at these big names. We had to face questions such as: What you are going to store, are you going to store my stuff on your server? It’s about saving costs. Interesting what Leo said this morning, that it’s not about money. You have to be careful talking about costs, you might be talking to IT people, library systems managers etc. and we’re telling them we’ll take charge of the management of your server. But we are taking away those mondaine tasks with the belief that you can change from using 70% of your time to 30 % for the managing services to developing innovation. It’s about freeing up people from management of hardware and instead focusing on services to users. 

We did research about library transactions (e.g. back office transactions, OPAC transactions etc.) and look at how our software could provide the right sort of infrastructure to provide efficiencies to libraries. Another argument is that the Cloud is greener. It uses less servers and has a lesser carbon footprint each library having their own servers. It’s maybe not about internal efficiencies but it’s an interesting aside. 

So we are pushing the idea of something new and maybe better. It’s a struggle when you are talking about the Cloud because a lot of people ask questions about traditional way of working based on a  deployed LMS. We hear: What would happen if? And most if the time the answer is well this won’t happen anymore. For example we are asked about offline and backup, what if the server goes down but the answer is it won’t go down. This is a positive thing of the Cloud, you shouldn’t have to worry about that. We are not reliant on the one server. We have racks of servers, we can invest in powerful systems. It won’t be the library server that goes down, it will be the organisational network.

What about downtime and upgrades? Currently we are obsessed with minimising downtime. But in the Cloud you probably won’t even notice when an upgrade is made. We do it regularly, it’s a tricky moment we do about 4 times a year, and we need to be careful but libraries won’t notice. 

It’s about efficiencies, so not cost savings but efficiencies in the management of services especially where each library does the same thing. It’s the idea of shared data and shared tasks. We are expert in this field in the library world. There are other options for shared data to create efficiencies. E.g. we may use the same vendors, check the serials in the same way. The development process is community driven. The other one is ERM. If one institution creates a licence data (or uses one that we’ve created), the next library can simply re-use what’s already there.There is one version of WorldShare and you have an instance of it. It’s not just about creating data, it’s also that analysis becomes an interesting idea. Others might have specialities. You can analyse holdings on a specific area and compare with other libraries. When working in silos, you don’t have these options. 

The big scary elephant is about security. What about my data? Can I get it back? Is it safe? I don’t want to give you a law lesson. I’m told (I did a bit of research) that a lot of people worry about the US Patriot Act (this is my understanding), which is part of a number of security measures set up after 9/11 and is about the ability to access data (terrorism etc.). In the US we are horrified about the idea of keeping transactions data because we have the idea that this Act means that data within the US is available, apparently a lot of this is scare stories, what we do at OCLC is that we abide by local data protection acts. We have to take consideration of customers’ concerns. We have been thinking of these things. The Patriots’ Act gets all the publicity but in the UK there is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). So we take the security seriously. It’s about scripting the data. There is more information on our website about this. 

My questions to participants are (what I’m interested to know about you):

Why do you want to move to the Cloud?

How will your organisation benefit?

What would you move to the cloud? What’s stopping you?

Discussion:

Q: You were talking about offline backups. We have mobile libraries going round. We are thinking of a cloud-based system but not sure how that would work.

A: The default answer is that you can access the systems from anywhere and that’s our default attitude. But in some cases we have to acknowledge that an offline system is more appropriate and then data/transactions can be uploaded to the Cloud. When we are so immersed in this world, we tend to forget situations where it may not work so well. Most of the users we work with are more static.

Q: Is there supply and demand for online video?

A: We provide a platform, one part of which is WorldShare Management services so for video it would have to be streamed, it’s not a discreet service we offer.

Q: Can we keep local copies? 

A: I once heard of someone who couldn’t imagine that there were libraries that had data they didn’t want to share. Our approach is that we need to develop the ability to have records hidden from WorldCat. We have the flexibility to catalogue all sorts of types of material, e.g. law material, private papers etc. This is the positive advantage of silos! But it’s on our roadmap. It will come, it isn’t there yet but it’s recognised as a high priority. WorldShare offers the ability to catalogue in a shared environment. There are more records in WorldCat that are not traditional books, there are other types such as e-resources etc.

Q: We are going with Alma in July in the Cloud. I’m an IT guy in the library. OCLC is out there already. Is there a way that both systems are going to “speak” to each other?

A: Yes, you’ve got WorldCat and we’ve built around it an alternative to Alma, and WorldCat still exists in its own right. So the access of Alma to WorldCat should be possible. With WorldShare you don’t need to download the records because it’s already there but with other systems we’ll need to make sure it’s possible.

Q: What we are hoping from the Cloud is not only library services but all the other stuff, api’s, finance systems, student record systems etc.

A: That’s one of the ideas of WorldShare, it’s the community data services and apps, the platform is built using open architecture. Even what we describe as the LMS has services on the platform and users can build other services on the platform. E.g. if you use EBSCO as discovery service, you can build in on the platform because it’s an open system. Apps that are written for WorldShare, we will quality check them and make sure the rights are respected but it’s our idea of a community. That’s the real beauty of the collaboration.

Rapid fire sessions

Penny of Bailey Solutions: Tracking software

Outlook is not enough to monitor enquiries (there is an article available about this). Why would you want to track enquiries? You want to improve your service, it’s also about not missing deadlines, emails don’t give you statistics so you have to enter them somewhere else. Our software provides tools and it’s also about the quality of the information (statistics). Our software is also especially useful if you respond to FOI requests. It’s about sharing knowledge so that the enquiries staff can see how it’s been done before. It allows to store information also for complex enquiries. It provides a 24/7 service, as it keeps on recording your enquiries even out of hours.

Andy Tattersall, Uni of Sheffield

We’re in the process of moving from Talis to Alma. I want to talk of what we think will happen in the future. My point of view is from a systems manager so didn’t look at the legal point of view. Mine is about corporate services. We’re on a good footing already because our IT people are wanting to move, providing safeguards are in place. We need good relationships with the technical people. Don’t forget to do that. Cloud stuff is good for user interface, but you will have local systems needing to talk to your Cloud system, e.g. firewalls so you need secure protocols, this is really important. Data security is a biggy. We’ve all got worries about this, are we compliant legally (e.g. EU laws)? What IT people asked me: what about backup data? What if it’s stored in the US? The less sensitive data the better. It’s a good thing to sprinkle you data down anyway and have disaster plans. I’m not talking of power cuts etc., we all expect companies to respond to that, but what happens if someone pulls the plug, if no money comes in, what plans are in place? What about technical details: we have specialist people to manipulate the data, so how much technical skills will I need in the future?

Jeff Newman, Kaltura

Kaltura is an online video platform for solving the problem of who hosts when, for example what if youtube is not the solution? This is for universities. We have a system to stream videos on all devices, it’s a SaaS (Software as a Service). It works for all types of content. We created an app called mediaspace, it’s a portal system allowing to create galleries of video content using a logging so it’s not for the general public. There are different levels of permissions/controls to secure videos on the internet. It’s an OS platform. Its’ a matter of choosing the appropriate application. We are an open and flexible platform so if you have your own system it could be integrated. We have already a lot of customers, including in Denmark.

Dave Parkes, Uni of Staffordshire

I’m not selling anything but want to say how we create the Horizon report, it comes out every 5 years and is a window on the education sector. We usually get it about right, we said that tablets would be happening etc. there’s 40 of us worldwide working in the Cloud, never see each other but we argue and talk about stuff, we start to narrow things down, what are people using in education, what are the challenges etc., we have a watchlist that we look at. Anything that’s relevant to universities. It takes about 3 months for things to take shape. It’s challenging when 40 people have a case to argue but eventually we produce a little booklet. It’s then given away (my son was very impressed with that). Our predictions for the next 2 to 3 years: increasingly using games in technology, using analytics, and for the next 4 to 5 years, freely printing and wearable technology.

Nicola Philpott, Ancoris

We are a partner company working with Google. Organisations can buy directly from Google but Google doesn’t offer services around the project itself, they provide tools and they have partners in the UK, we are one of them. We work with organisations that for instance have the project to get rid of emails, or companies looking at diff ways of storing docs so using goggle drive. We look at the project from start to finish, help migrate the data etc. We’ve just finished a project with Bristol University. We help with the change of management, users changing platform and getting them learning to doing that, so we provide training, face to face or webinars to help them use your new service. We have an online e-learning platform, users can ask questions, find answers etc. So helping you move your project on, including your customisations. The Google Apps suite includes gmail, calendar, G+, vault, docs& drive, sites (intranet?), talk (online conferences etc.). It allows collaborative team working.

Robert Bley, Ex Libris

Random thoughts and musings about the Cloud. What is not the Cloud? It’s not about just hosting legacy apps, it’s born Cloud, it’s not Cloud server, it’s proper shared services, it’s supporting the application beyond hosting. This means big change for libraries, for vendors, we need to re-engineer our business around Cloud applications. E.g. it’s multi-language. How to choose a Cloud provider? Do they have global facilities, the manpower to support you and all other customers, full redundancy infrastructure, data centre certified to relevant standards, etc.? Do they have EU hosting? If it has to be in the States, are they part of the same agreements? Who else uses a service and are they happy with it? Is there physical security? How open is the system, e.g. doing mashups, taking the data elsewhere? Does the vendor support just the application or the infrastructure as well, and the Code? We’ve realised very soon that it’s very entwined. More evidence is needed, does it cost more? There is a agreement that it’s Green, so energy savings. Implications for libraries in terms of staff, not so much numbers but skills, and if tech skills, is it the traditional ones? Or can we start doing mashups etc. Budgeting is also an important question. We’ve done calculations about cost savings and we are happy to refine those. It encourages people to be more creative.

Bethan Ruddock, MIMAS

LAMP: your data uses lots of fabulous info so how to put it in a Cloud service to allow you to benchmark with other libraries? This project is a partnership between JISC, Huddersfield and Mimas. We had a meeting the other day, and we talked about: do you think you might want this so we’ve created a dashboard with our discussions. The idea is that you’d click on a single thing and then it takes you down to further details. It’s early days. Potential use cases of things we think people might want to do with this data, we’d like to hear from the community.

Liz Robins, OCLC

Why web scale makes sense for libraries? OCLC has a good background in delivering library services. WorldCat is essentially web-based and we have been doing this for 40 years. Sharable data is not just for bib data, but vendors, licences, knowledge base etc. It’s innovative, WorldShare is the name of the platform, started from scratch, built on open platform to allow for other technologies as well. The situation now is there are lots of silos not speaking to each other, so what if we brought all these services together. We are all over the world. 100 sites , the first in the UK was on 4th June.

Bethan Ruddock from MIMAS
Opening up - bibliographic data-sharing and interoperability (view slides of the presentation)

Why would you want to share data? And how would you do it? Your data could be enhanced from being shared. We have developed a lot of services that are about shared data (e.g COPAC, Archives Hub etc.). COPAC combines your record with other peoples’ records. With Archives it’s different because they are unique but hey are stored in the same database. With LAMP we’ve only just started so we don’t really know yet but we would also like to combine your data.

So you need to think of the format. If it’s just a library service, it’s probably only up to you, it’s whatever works for you. But with the general caveats of trying to do something that’s stable, so if you can store things in fairly compact and sustainable ways, it will help because combination services will want data in certain formats. They may not always do the transformations for you.

Have a look at what formats you can get data in and how you can get it out? If the data is in a locked down system it will be hard to get it out. Which one is most appropriate for what you want to do? Which version should you choose? Xml is one of the best formats, it’s text based so it’s sustainable, it’s compact and transformable. If you don’t have the expertise in-house, there are services that can help you. We’ve developed a programme to transform data in EAD for Archives.

Consistently bad data is better than inconsistently good data, that’s “my rule”. It’s easy to fix something in the wrong place everywhere, whereas it’s hard to correct something that’s inconsistently wrong in 5% of your records.

Barriers and risks are about licensing and data ownership. For example there are legal barriers to sharing. Think also of the risk of not sharing your data not only the risks of sharing it. What will happen to your data if you don’t share it?

Things to think when choosing a Cloud solution, think of why you want to share your data? Does the service meet your needs? Is it something your users have asked for e.g. they want your data as part of a collaborative service? Is it for resource management? Once you’ve decided where and why you want to send you data, think of the right format for the purpose. And will you be able to get it out of the Cloud in an appropriate format if you wanted to send it elsewhere? Will it be kept in a standardised format?

 A note on Linked Data: it’s the idea that you describe something with the use of triples and they are reversible. So they are built to describe a relationship. This allows you to build a picture and this can then be extended: example: Ruth works at MIMAS, and reverse this info and then link it; so for instance who else works at MIMAS, what else does this person do etc. everything has a unique identifier so things can’t conflict even if the name is the same, as an example. The idea is that it can go in the internet because of uri’s and url’s. We use standardised vocabulary. There are definitions of RDF types and you can look up what it means.

Panel questions and answers

Should we teach Cloud literacy (especially for students)

We (Staffordshire) provide literacy about the Cloud and it’s all about staying safe online, so it’s about raising awareness, including of the “digital health”. Understanding the consequences of an online self, so as not to be limited in the future. It’s about letting go of a level of control. It’s also having the resources there and educating about the risks. It’s extraordinary to have tools allowing to collaborate. There is often an idea that teachers don’t understand technology. But we have to explain the different layers of media. Recommended reading Marc must die

140 characters to convince us not to go to the Cloud

They’re all watching you. Where’s my data. They are going to sell it back to you. Data security issues. Buy in isolation, be off grid. Some people in Microsoft world send their kids to schools where they are no computers. Don’t be part of the technological singularity, where software becomes self-aware. Don’t put all of the stock. Be careful to give away too much and not being able to get it back. How much will you outsource? If you exit the Cloud and you have no more infrastructure to fall back onto.

Other presentation slides:

• Staffordshire University: Koha the cloud and the crowd
• Collaborating to create eBooks in the Cloud
• Welcome to the University of Google 

And tweets from the Conference on Eventifier