How do I already participate in Cloud computing: Let me count the ways.
I love taking and sharing photographs of my family, friends and our trips in the great outdoors. I have 2 favorite photo sharing sites: Creative Memories Memory Manager and Shutterfly, which I use most often. Memory Manager understands the importance of photos and stores your photography on multiple sites to prevent losses if a server goes down. I like Shutterfly best because of the ease of use, (except the upload time), ability to order prints and photo books and share photos with my family and friends easily. I tried another company, that shall remain nameless, and they wanted to charge me to store my photos on their site and so far Shutterfly has remained free and continues to send me free coupons for photo books and new products. I feel reassured that if my computer crashes I have another layer of protection and backup of my precious photos.
How would cloud computing improve MCPLD services and bottom line?
Cloud computing can allow the library to focus on our mission and what we do best and only have to pay for as much storage access as we need at a given time, while still allowing that information to be shared with our patrons, thus fulfilling our core mission and allowing increased circulation.. My only concern would be ensuring stringent safety and security standards as cloud computing evolves. We've all see what has happened recently when skilled hackers gain access to crucial data both at a local and national level.
I'm off to go look at clouds....