Future Digital Library: Can the use of cloud computing into the people's home

(Reporter Du Yu) Recently, the reporter came to the capital library, because is the working day, the reader is not many, the huge library appears a bit empty. But the six-storey electronic reading room, has already sat full brim, even the seats have become scarce resources, there are three or four readers have to stand waiting on the machine.

"The digital resources in the library are very systematic, professional and convenient to retrieve." It would be better if you had a little more seats. A reader waiting to be on the machine said.

In fact, in the library, in order to make the digital resources more effective use, not only to add seats in the museum, but also vigorously develop and build digital library. is to use modern network information technology to send library services to ordinary people's homes, so that the public can access the library at any time, the rich, systematic knowledge and information.

Cultural resources sharing breaks down geographical limits

The total amount of public libraries in China is insufficient and the service resources are low, which has a significant gap with international standards. The public Library standard of the International Federation of Library Associations stipulates that every 50,000 persons have a library. International Atlas and UNESCO's Guide to the development of Public Library services stipulates that the per capita volume of public libraries should reach 1.5-2.5 volumes. As of 2009, there is a public library for every 468,000 talents in our country, and the average per capita collection of public libraries is only 0.44, which is much lower than that of the International Book Federation. Guoxin, a professor of information management at Peking University, sees that more than 2,800 public libraries in China have not been able to get rid of the old pattern of "one district, one library, one county," and cannot form a service system to meet the needs of the public culture.

Under the condition of insufficient resources in public libraries, the new media, such as internet and mobile phone, become the important channel for the public to acquire knowledge and information, and also become the transmission way and service channel of Digital Library.

Reporter in 2011 China Library Annual Meeting "Digital Library promotion Engineering interactive experience area" see, through mobile phone, tablet computer, TV and other terminals, users can easily access the Shaanxi Library of the Chinese comic book Digital Reading Room, browse "Nezha Sea", "revolt" and other classic comics, Can be personally watching the capital library "Ming and qing furniture decorative patterns" lectures, but also the national Library of "difficult and brilliant-commemorate the founding of the 90 anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party collection of precious Historical literature exhibition" in the bag.

袁谊, senior vice president of Wave group, describes the future of the Digital library: "The digital library is like a bank, through a service card, not only to all the banks, but also to the home, the car with computers, mobile phone to enjoy services." ”

Insufficient resources available to interconnect

However, for digital libraries, it is a good prospect to use simple digital devices to extract information at any time and place. Repeated construction, different standards and insufficient resources have become a stumbling block to the development of digital libraries.

It is understood that China's digital library projects under construction, in addition to the National Digital library projects, digital Library extension projects and other national projects, some commercial digital library, and the number of digital libraries built by each library. Lack of unified planning, individual, inevitable duplication of the construction of the phenomenon, and the various digital library standards are different, to the resource sharing brings a lot of obstacles. Heping, director of the National Library, said: "Most of the existing standard norms are not very operational, and in the long-term preservation of digital resources, such as the lack of universally accepted and widely used standards, but also led to some of the digital resources can not be used, or even permanent disappearance." ”

In addition, the shortage of resources is another dilemma facing the digital library. There are more than 6.9 million books in Chinese library, while in China, the National Digital library currently earns only 260,000 books, less than 4% of the total amount of paper books. The reporter randomly opened some e-books, found that many can only read the first 24 pages of the book, really realize the full text is not much. Without sufficient resources, a fast and convenient channel is difficult to meet the needs of the public.

Technology is not a problem that requires a top-level design

Whether the "cloud computing" technology can solve the problems of digital library development has become one of the focus of experts and scholars in the 2011 Chinese Library Annual Meeting.

Through the cloud computing technology, each independent digital library's server will be integrated together, form a large-scale "cloud", the system carries on the unified management dispatch, realizes the resources and the service sharing. Experts and scholars believe that the application of cloud computing technology in the construction of digital library can effectively avoid repetitive construction and promote the unification of technical standards, and the increase of information aggregation will make the digital library cover a wider range and lower cost. Heping said that the future digital library construction should use cloud computing technology, to create ubiquitous digital library "cloud."

In foreign countries, cloud computing technology has been used in library services. In 2009, the us-based Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) launched Cloud computing Services-"web-level collaborative Library Management Services", linking the collection and services of more than 10,000 libraries in the world, forming a global library Knowledge base, where users need only one search, Can get information about all the libraries. The introduction of this service is considered to be an important symbol of the arrival of the "cloud age" of the library.

In addition to the library industry, many information technology enterprises have joined the ranks of digital library construction. 2011 China Library Annual meeting attracted the wave, founder, Intel, Microsoft, IBM and other domestic and foreign IT companies eyes. 袁谊 told reporters that cloud computing technology used in digital library construction has a mature technical basis, now the most important thing is to establish a unified resource processing, organization, preservation, service standards, which requires the country-led, by the library, enterprises to participate in the formulation, co-ordination and coordination, and can not be individually.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)