Harnessing Cloud Computing Paradigm for Virtual Library Adoption in Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria

Abstract

Virtual library facilities in any University improved information services delivery that supports qualitative learning and research in such institution. However, shortage of skilled manpower to manage and maintain existing ICT Infrastructure and erratic power supply to power the ICT equipment are identified as part of the challenges militating against virtual libraries implementation in Nigerian Universities. These have made it complicated for its effective maintenance and required utility throughput. This situation is further worsened by the increasing need for ubiquitous availability of electronic library services to clients as an inherent characteristic of virtual libraries, resulting to prohibitive establishment and operational cost for the tertiary institutions to meet up. This study tends to address the identified problems by harnessing the benefits presented by open source and cloud computing technologies for the development and management of virtual library in Nigerian tertiary institution. The model presented in this study is based on community cloud model that leverage open source platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) model to provision and maintain virtual library services.