DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, Vol. 32, No. 6, November 2012, pp. 506-512 © 2012, DESIDOC Received 18 January 2012, accepted 30 March 2012, online published 506 Cloud Computing and Libraries S.Y. Bansode and S.M. Pujar* Department of Library and Information Science, University of Pune, Pune-411 007 *Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Gen Vaidya Marg, Goregaon (East), Mumbai-400 065 E-mail: sadanand@unipune.ac.in; pujar@igidr.ac.in ABSTRACT Cloud computing is a new breed of service offered over the internet, which has completely changed the way one can use the power of computers irrespective of geographic location. It has brought in new avenues for organisations and businesses to offer services using hardware or software or platform of third party sources, thus saving on cost and maintenance. In this paper, an attempt has been made to give an overview of this technology, initiatives, advantages and disadvantages and the areas in which libraries can deploy this technology for providing services and augment the productivity of library staff. Keywords: Cloud computing, Web 2.0, libraries 1. INTRODUCTION Till recently, and now too many organisations and individuals use computers to work alone, inside a business or home by investing on hardware, software and maintenance. This scenario is slowly changing owing to the emergence of new breed of Internet services popularly known as Web 2.0, through which now one can use the power of computers at a completely different location, what it is popularly called as ‘in the cloud’ or ‘cloud computing’. There are many synonyms for cloud computing such as, ‘on-demand computing’, ‘software as a service’, ‘information utilities’, ‘the internet as a platform’, and others 1 . Cloud computing refers to use of web for computing needs which could include using software applications, storing data, accessing computing power, or using a platform to build applications. From e-mail, to word processing or photo sharing or video sharing one can use products that live in the cloud, which are secure, backed-up and accessible from any Internet connection. The best live example of this is Gmail, which is increasingly used by organisations and individuals to run their e-mail services. Google Apps being free for educational institutions is widely used for running different applications, especially the email services, which was earlier run using their own computer servers. This has saved cost for the organisations as they pay per use for applications and services and time for the computer staff, which they can invest on running other services and need not worry about upgrading, backup, compatibility, and maintenance of servers, which is taken care of by Google. Libraries are using computers for running services such as Integrated Library Management Software (ILMS), website or portal, digital library or institutional repository, etc. These are either maintained by parent organisation’s computer staff or library staff. It involves investment on hardware, software, and staff to maintain these services and undertake backup and upgrade as and when new version of the software gets released. Library professionals in most cases not being trained in maintaining servers find it difficult to undertake some of these activities without the support of IT staff from within or outside the organisation. Now cloud computing has become a new buzzword in the field of libraries, which is blessing in disguise to run different ICT services without much of a problem as third-party services will manage servers and undertake upgrades and take backup of data. Even though there are some concerns in using cloud services such as privacy, security, etc., some of the libraries have already embraced this new technology to run some of their services.