Cloud Library Framework for Ethiopian Public Higher Learning Institutions

The ever increasing users' information need of electronic resources forced librarians to increase their effort of collecting, organizing, preserving and disseminating huge amount of electronic materials, which require state-of-the-art infrastructures so that the electronic resources be deployed easily, quickly and economically. Cloud library is the best option for libraries; especially where electronic library services divide is highly visible, like the Ethiopian higher learning institutions. Such library system allows the establishment of information technology infrastructure on demand and lowers the difficulty of control mechanism. The integration of existing library services can be implemented by clustering current library environment. The methodology employed for this work include a rigorous analysis of a recent research on one point cloud library service as an alternative to e-service provision and management. In addition, to designing a final framework a researchers conduct a survey research which helps to identify the stakeholders view on cloud library services, the model required and services needed. Questionnaire was used to collect data from purposively selected academic libraries. The selection was centered on the generation of universities namely 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation.