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Introduction
In recent years, the information technology sector has witnessed technological turmoil in the form of cloud computing. The concept of cloud computing has been defined as "an integrated package of computing services and applications on the web offered as a utility" (Yuvaraj, 2015), where the word "cloud" can be seen as the summation of Internet-based data access and exchange along with low-cost computing and applications. Cloud computing is an outcome of the advancements of various technologies: the Internet, hardware, systems management and distributed computing (Buyya et al. , 2009). The concept was in practice earlier, but the term was formally announced by Google in 2010, which most scholars feel was a marketing strategy.
A survey conducted by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS, 2012) revealed that the rate of adoption of cloud computing applications is 19 per cent in USA, 12 per cent in Europe, 28 per cent in Asia-Pacific and 39 per cent in Latin America. Scholars have argued that by 2020, most services will be available in the cloud, which shows that the preliminary work for shifting to cloud is in progress. Apart from commercial avenues, medical care, agriculture, education and libraries in USA and Europe have widely adopted the cloud computing technology, seeing its merits. In India, there has been a wide increase in the adoption rate, with lots of investment in the small and medium enterprises (SME) and data centres. Service provider segments such as TCS, Wipro and Netmagic in India are evolving into major cloud offerings that are playing a major role in cloud computing adoption in India.
The environment in which academic libraries are operating has drastically changed in the past few years. With the emergence of the Internet era, libraries are facing problems to justify their services. Cloud computing is an approach to computing that could be worthwhile to academic libraries. Academic libraries can choose how to remain connected in the cloud, to become part of the cloud environment by opting for software, systems and hardware services offered by the cloud service provider. Whatever service they choose, cloud computing can help academic libraries to save time, money and resources, if servers and software were not needed on their premises as they are today. Libraries can focus more directly on...