1. Cloud Computing for College Library
Automation
Vasantha Raju N.
Librarian
Govt. First Grade College
Periyapatna
vasanthrz@gmail.com
18th Refresher Course in Library & Information Science
UGC-Academic Staff College
16th Feb 2012
University of Mysore, Mysore

2. Presentation Layout
• Why library automation has not been success so far in
many of the government college libraries?
• What is cloud computing and why we need to go for cloud
computing?
• Important layers of cloud computing
• How cloud computing architecture can help colleges to
automate their libraries?
• Cloud Computing Service Providers
• Issues involved in cloud computing?
• Examples of implementing cloud computing in libraries and
other domains.

3. Why library automation has not been success so far in
many of the college libraries?
• Lack of infrastructure (building)
 there are 344 government colleges. Many of the colleges established
in 2007-2008 have no own buildings.
 In a recent study done by Balasubramanya & Guruprasad (2011) have
found that, of the 10 government degree colleges they have surveyed
in Mysore district, none of them have separate buildings for libraries.
 Lack of Man Power Support

4. Sl. No Name of the College Year Student Library Staff
of Strength* Librarian Supporting
Establishment Staff
1 Maharani's Science College for Women 1919 890 1 4
2 Government First Grade College -Krishnarajanagar 1971 1734 1 2
3 Sri.D.Devaraj Urs Government First Grade College 1971 1235 1 1
4 Maharani's Arts College for Women 1979 3020 1 7
5 Government First Grade College – Heggadevanakote 1985 330 1 -
6 Government First Grade College -Periyapatna 1991 446 1 2
7 Government First Grade College-Kuvempu Nagar 1996 639 1 1
8 Government First Grade College-Bannur 2007 384 1 -
9 Government First Grade College-Bilikere 2007 160 1 -
10 Government First Grade College-Hanagodu 2007 24 1 -
11 Government College for Women- 2007 362 1 -
Hootagalli(Vijaynagar)
12 Government First Grade College-Nanjanagudu 2007 468 1 1
13 Government College for Women-Saligrama 2007 233 1 1
14 Government First Grade College- Siddartha Layout, 2007 87 1 -
Mysore
15 Government First Grade College- T.Narasipura 2007 320 1 -
16 Government First Grade College- Ullahalli, 2007 41 1 -
Nanjangud
17 Government First Grade College for Women-Hunsur 2007 186 1 -
*Source:http://dce.kar.nic.in/statistics/gov/collegewisecoursewise_govt.pdf
Note: The student strength presented in Table 1 is for 2008-09. The student strength in almost all the colleges in
Mysore District has doubled in the year 2010-11.

5. 753
800
700 571
Number of Students
600 491
446
500
400
300
200
100
0
2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
Years
Figure 1: Increase in Student Strength in GFGC-
Periyapatna
Source: GFGC-Periyapatna Admission Records

6. • Lack of Financial Support and Planning
Sl. No. Years Grants for Book
Purchasing
(in Lakhs)
1 2007-08 144500.00
2 2008-09 264878.00
3 2009-10 358352.00
4 2010-11 809400.50
There is no proper plan for deciding in how much funds or financial
resources should be utilized for subscribing scholarly journals/books and
maintaining library aesthetics or day to day functions.
Source: GFGC-Periyapatna Library Stock Verification Reports (2007-2011)

7. • Issues in ICTs implementation in libraries
 In 2009 DCE in Gulbarga University Library and Karnataka State College
Librarians Association (KSCLE) has organized week long program for all the
government college librarians to train them in using contemporary
technologies for library management
 In 2011 DCE in association with National Informatics Centre (NIC) provided
hands-on training in using E-Granthalaya a free library automation
software developed by NIC for 60 government college librarians in
Karnataka (Muthuraja, 2011).
 Still the issues of availability of hardware requirements and software
selection for library automation have remained unresolved.
So how do we overcome these problems? One solution that
we can thought of is “Cloud Computing”

8. What is cloud computing and why we need to
go for cloud computing?
• What is “Cloud Computing”?
“Cloud computing is a style of computing in which massively scalable IT-related
capabilities are provided as a service to external customers using Internet
technologies” (Gartner, 2009).
“Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a
product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to
computers and other devices as a metered service over a network (typically the
Internet)” (Wikipedia 2012).
“Cloud computing means using Web services for our computing needs which
could include using software applications, storing data, accessing computing
power, or using a platform to build applications” (Kroski, 2009).

9. Important Layers of Cloud Computing
SaaS
(Software as a Service)
Examples : E-mails, CRM, ILS, Google Docs, etc
PaaS
(Platform as a Service)
Examples: Application Development,
IaaS
(Infrastructure as a Service)
Examples : Network, Data Storage, Hosting etc.

10. How cloud computing architecture can help
colleges to automate their libraries?
• Reduce dependency on infrastructure ( server and other
hardware peripherals)
• Cost effectiveness
• Duplication of work can be avoided
• Browser based technology (virtualization) 24/7 Access
• Integration and exchange of data and others

11. Cloud Computing Service Providers
• Amazon EC2 (Elastic Computing Cloud)
• Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Services)
• Google Apps
• Windows Azure
• IBM Smart Cloud, etc.,

12. Examples of ILS in Cloud Computing Environment
University of Mysore WebOPAC hosted on the Cloud
http://libcat.mysore-univ.org/
Courtesy: University of Mysore Main Library

13. Western State College of Colorado Using Google Apps
for hosting its E-Library
Courtesy: Western State College of Colorado

14. Google Docs one of the well known office
applications on the Cloud
Courtesy: https://docs.google.com/

15. LibraryThing is another applications runs on the Cloud
Computing Environment
Courtesy: http://www.librarything.com

16. Flickr Photo stream on the Web hosted on the cloud
Computing Environment
Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com

17. Issues in Implementing Cloud
Computing
• Data Privacy (Patron Records)
• Data Security or Data Ownership (Orwellian
Intrusion, Kiroski, 2009)
• Need Internet for using cloud computing
• Data Reliability
• Data Lock-in (Interoperability), etc.,

18. Thank You
?
Courtesy: OCLC