7 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

6. Contextual Demands
The contextual demands on the Digital Libraries include the following:
6.1 Information Overload
The amount of information available from the different sources doubles every year. This
information needs to be stored inside the organization in a embedded storage system. As
the volume of the information increases, it becomes difficult to maintain these enormous
data in one place. Hence it may be maintained in a Storage Area Network (SAN) or in
distributed server.
6.2 Technological Innovations and obsolescence
The demand to produce goods and services efficiently and to come up with new products
and services places lot of importance on technological breakthroughs that may give them
an advantage over their competitors. Technology is playing an increased role in both
manufacturing and service organizations. New and improved technology for data storage
and management enables organizations to produce quality information.
6.3 Customer orientation
The Customer’s sophistication and expectation increases as they become more informed
about the availability of the quality of services. Customers also want customized
information with high quality and at a faster rate.
6.4 Need for real time operations
Organizations in this information age no longer have the luxury of information float,
which is the time between when new data is generated and its capture. It is expected today,
that as soon as new data is generated it must be captured and updated in the storage
devices for converting them into pieces of useful information.
6.5 Global spread of end users
The information requirement is not only for the users inside the organization. It must be
available to anyone (legitimate users), any where, and any time. High performance
telecommunication technologies can provide the accessibility without much time lag.
6.6 Changing life style
Due to the change in working time and geographical time difference, the users would like
to access the data from the server at any point of time. Data must be available 24/7 and
365 days a year.
7. Organizational response
Organizations respond in many ways to the contextual demands discussed above. The
major responses are stated below:
7.1 Collaborations
There are several types of alliances; sharing resources, establishing permanent
relationships and creating joint research efforts, that helps in dealing with some of the
above mentioned demands.
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