Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Abstract

Advances in computing in the twenty-first century has shifted the late twentieth century model of computers that act as independent processing machines, back to the more archaic model of terminals that have processing done by a larger, centralized network. This shift has come about because of the growth of Cloud computing, which, for this chapter, will be defined as a model of computing as infrastructure. Whether the drive to Cloud solutions was driven by the limited resources of mobile devices, or the need to collectively share and store data across multiple platforms, or even a desire to offload software itself onto a Cloud system, the result has been the establishment of Cloud computing as an infrastructure akin to electric or telecom utility systems. As a vital infrastructure, issues related to the growth, management, and regulation of “the Cloud” will have many repercussions, some of which librarians have a direct stake in addressing, such as privacy, market changes, dependability, and granularity of service. This chapter will focus on one particular issue: scholarly communication and the openness of information. This will require that we touch on issues related to copyright law and piracy, and how these relate to librarians’ professional values of access, democracy, and the Common Good.

Comments

ACRL Publications

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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