Recently in Web-scale Category
So at some point, blogging became like exercise to me. It used to come easily because I did it regularly, and if I didn't do it regularly, I missed it terribly. I hear that runners get like this...I wouldn't know. Despite my hectic pace, it's more webscale than cardiovascular. So, I'm trying once again to turn over a new leaf, looking for an equivalent to new year's day to start blogging again. I figured that OCLC's introduction of a new brand is as good way to start as any.
OCLC WorldShare
I won't bore any of you with what goes into a new name, a new brand. Let's just say it's a lot more work than you might imagine. And OCLC WorldShare is so much more than just a new cloud-based, cooperative library management service. I've talked a lot about building webscale with libraries over the last few years. OCLC WorldShare introduces three critical components of our strategy for truly cooperating at Webscale: WorldShare, our commitment to radical collaboration in library service delivery; OCLC WorldShare Platform, where libraries can collectively innovate library services; and the opening of new worldwide data centers that will support OCLC services globally.
Of vital importance to all of us at OCLC--and I think made clear in the introduction of WorldShare--is the hand-in-hand nature in which it co-exists with WorldCat. I still view WorldCat as the most compelling and distinguishing feature of the management services that our global team at OCLC has been building over the last four years. It was nice to see that we are not alone in the assertion of WorldCat's place in the world of important databases. It is truly an amazing database and a rich source of discovery.
Management
Applications and The Platform
OCLC WorldShare Management Services replaces Web-scale Management Services, while giving comfort to the growing community that already affectionately refers to it as WMS. New services--from metadata management to resource sharing and consortial borrowing--will come together under this name.
WMS has served as an example of one of the most exciting developments at OCLC, the platform on which these applications are built and their associated Web Services are exposed and shared. Libraries, developers, and 3rd parties will be able to innovate collectively on a provider-neutral platform--the OCLC WorldShare Platform.
We're taking our commitment to cooperative innovation very seriously. The OCLC WorldShare platform is intended for the entire library ecosystem--from tech-savvy librarians to developers, from part-time coders to software engineers, from library automation start-ups to established vendors--and all for the benefit of libraries, especially those without the resources to create new services on their own. In my opinion, this is webscale for systems librarianship.
A Pace even more
hectic
By no stretch of the imagination can I claim product leadership for all things webscale at OCLC...I have six peers who lead product portfolios with equally lofty and ambitious goals and plans. We work very collaboratively together and with the OCLC membership to ensure that our product paths have meaning to and impact on the library community. But I will admit that building webscale with libraries and helping create a new brand have kept me busier than I expected, and too busy for this blog or even the occasional tweet.
That said, I'm using the occasion of a new brand for OCLC to once again recommit to making Hectic Pace a place for discussion and announcements of import to technology in libraries. I've used it selfishly over the last couple of years to talk about the work that I'm intimately involved with on a day-to-day basis. I'm optimistic that the introduction of the OCLC WorldShare Platform, the growth of the WMS community, and other equally ambitious endeavors will provide even more opportunity to share and discuss what goes on in the world of library automation. Let's keep learning.
Cloud Computing is here to stay. We can refine it's definitions, place it in historical context, and argue of libraries' place in the Cloud, but there is no stopping it.
Web Scale is vital in order for libraries to sustain their relevance and to create value for their staff and users.
We are technically, politically, legally, and emotionally ready to move management and end-user services to Web Scale.
The paradoxical challenge of Web-scale Management is how to effectively establish a platform on which libraries can do everything they're used to doing, while simultaneously building that platform so that libraries can change the way they do things, continually innovating to address the changing nature of their collections and the shifting expectations of their users.
This last part brings me to my biggest take-away, which we heard loud and clear from Erik and Jaap, the Shanachies. In the end, our greatest strength is people.
I am sincere in my belief that OCLC is uniquely positioned to provide Web-scale services to its members and their end users, but more than that, we are obliged to do so. But as Berndt pointed out so poignantly, OCLC needs libraries as much as libraries need OCLC. It's through this symbiotic relationship that we can harness the collective innovation necessary to make library management and end-user platforms more than the sum of their parts.
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