[Air-L] Library Use of Cloud Computing

[Primary Research Group]

Primary ResearchGroup has published the Survey of LibraryUse of Cloud Computing, ISBN 157440-191-2. 
 
The report looks closely at how academic, special and publiclibraries are using cloud computing services and plan to use them in thefuture.  The study gives detailed dataabout the use of specific services from Amazon, Google, DropBox and manyothers, as well as presenting an objective look at the benefits and costs ofcloud computing, and the opinions of librarians on data security, cost,reliability, impact on staff time and other issues concerning cloud computing.
 
Just a few of the report’s many findings are:
 
22.54% of libraries sampled use paid subscription softwareas a cloud computing service, including just 13.64% of libraries outside theUnited States.
 
Major cloud computing services have been used for hostingand/or distributing special collections by 2.82% of libraries in the sample.
 
63.04% of libraries categorize Google as trustworthy and8.7% as highly trustworthy. The remaining 28.26% say that Google is usuallytrustworthy and none consider it untrustworthy.
 
66.67% of libraries agree that, while data and file lossesare possible with major cloud computing services, these losses would not be anyworse than those occurring with traditional storage systems.
 
Less than 3% of libraries currently use platforms as aservice (PaaS), which enable end users to build their own applications online.
 
2.82% of libraries are considering using Rackspace in thefuture, including 5.56% of public libraries and 2.44% of academic libraries.
 
15.38% of libraries with budgets between $750,000 and$5,000,000 use server space rented from cloud computing services,
 
16.9% of libraries have adopted Google Apps as their defaultmeans of word processing.
 
The report’s conclusions are based on data from 72 academic,public and special libraries predominantly from the USA, Canada, Australia andthe UK.  For further information visit ourwebsite at www.PrimaryResearch.com.