Technological Imperative: Current Trends in the Foreign Market of Library Technologies

Currently, innovations in the field of information technology are increasingly becoming the key to the company’s success, its main competitive advantage. The library business is no exception in this regard. The purpose of the study is to study the current trends in the foreign market of library technologies as a factor that directly affects the methods and forms of library work based on information provided on the websites of foreign companies, as well as in summary reports on the development dynamics of the market of library technologies. Specialized companies offer to libraries the new resource management technologies, metadata sets for expanding collection or software tools for optimizing electronic catalogues. They are the providers of innovation for libraries, intermediaries between the end user and the advanced achievements of IT technologies.

The author notes that among the priorities of the development of library technology industry the unchallenged leadership belongs to library-information systems of the new generation: first, library service platforms that use cloud technologies and service architecture, and second, advanced integrated library systems with the addition of Web modules, Web applications, etc. The hidden spring of the development of foreign market of library technologies is the fundamental change in the concept of library automation, the transition from unified library systems, managing print and electronic resources and basing on client-server architecture, to universal library service platforms with cloud storage.

The author analyses in detail the trends of the library technology market in the United States as the most developed and active market, as well as in Europe and Latin America. The article draws attention to the companies — leaders in the competitive struggle in the market of library technologies. The author concludes that reorientation to network technologies means for libraries, on one hand, increase of efficiency, access to up-to-date online information, closer communication with users, reduction of non-core costs, and on the other hand, constant dependence on network service providers, whose set increases proportionally to the growing differentiation of the market, the maximum openness and partial de-specialisation, compensated by active participation in digital Humanities projects, and ultimately, loss of institutional autonomy.

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