Survey of Library Use of Cloud Computing

Primary Research Group has published the Survey of Library Use of Cloud Computing, ISBN 157440-191-2.

The report looks closely at how academic, special and public libraries are using cloud computing services and plan to use them in the future. The study gives detailed data about the use of specific services from Amazon, Google, DropBox and many others, as well as presenting an objective look at the benefits and costs of cloud computing, and the opinions of librarians on data security, cost, reliability, impact on staff time and other issues about cloud computing.

Just a few of the report's many findings are:

22.54% of libraries sampled use paid subscription software as a cloud computing service, including just 13.64% of libraries outside the United States.

Major cloud computing services have been used for hosting and/or distributing special collections by 2.82% of libraries in the sample.

63.04% of libraries categorize Google as trustworthy and 8.7% as highly trustworthy. The remaining 28.26% say that Google is usually trustworthy and none consider it untrustworthy.

66.67% of libraries agree that, while data and file losses are possible with major cloud computing services, these losses would not be any worse than those occurring with traditional storage systems.

Less than 3% of libraries currently use platforms as a service (PaaS), which enable end users to build their own applications online.

2.82% of libraries are considering using Rackspace in the future, 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 default means of word processing.

The report's conclusions are based on data from 72 academic, public and special libraries predominantly from the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. A pdf version of the report is currently available for $95.00 and a print version will be available on December 9, 2011. To view a table of contents, list of participants and excerpt, or to place an order in any format, visit out website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

ALSO FROM PRIMARY RESEARCH GROUP:

Primary Research Group has published Library Use of eBooks 2012 Edition, ISBN 157440-184-X

The report looks closely at library eBook purchasing and deployment policies and includes data on overall spending, spending on particular products, the break down of spending between aggregators and individual publishers among thousands of other data points. The study include exhaustive information on library eBook purchasing plans in particular subject areas and for particular types of technologies.

Library Use of eBooks 2012 Edition also gives detailed data on current and future spending plans on tablet computers, eBook readers, edirectories, etextbooks, eAudio books and many other forms of eBooks. In addition the report examines information eBook issues relating to information literacy, cataloging, interlibrary loan, course reserves, consortium relations and use and other pressing issues in eBook development and deployment. The study is based on survey data from more than 90 public, higher education and special libraries.

Just a few of the report's many findings are that:

Libraries in the sample will spend a mean of $118,453 on e-books in 201l and anticipate spending a mean of $128,712 in 2012.

Libraries sampled have a mean of 3.62 existing e-book licensing contracts with individual publishers and e-book aggregators.

College libraries will renew a mean of 89.4% of their e-book contracts, while corporate and legal libraries will renew a mean of 67.78%.

Among public libraries sampled, a mean of just 0.5% of e-book orders are made direct from the publisher. In comparison, 35% of orders made by corporate and legal libraries and 32.22% of those from government libraries are made this way.

46.48% of e-book purchases by college libraries and nearly a quarter of those made by government libraries were made through library consortia.

Only 6.93% of libraries in the sample have ever developed a video to explain any facet of e-book use.

Libraries in the sample have MARC records for a mean 66.01% of e-books in their collections.

29.11% of libraries have taken some measures to integrate e-books searches into journal article searches.

27.63% of libraries in the sample say that patrons use e-books about psychology occasionally and 26.32% say that they use them significantly.