Trzecia Strona adopts hybrid cloud approach with IBM to deliver remote access to books during pandemic

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Trzecia Strona, provider of digital library solutions in Poland, is adopting a hybrid cloud approach with IBM, enabling access to library resources from anywhere and on any device connected to the Internet through its Alfios and Bibliography systems. As a result, Trzecia Strona can meet the increasing needs of libraries to digitize resources and enable readers with near real time capabilities to borrow books in the pandemic.

 To address increased demand for remote access to books during the pandemic, Trzecia Strona needed an open hybrid cloud strategy that would help facilitate bidirectional data exchange between its systems and libraries, regardless of the IT environment. With IBM Cloud, Trzecia Strona can benefit from enhanced speed, greater scalability and higher stability of its operations.

The solutions provided by Trzecia Strona include Alfios - an integrated catalog system for the academic market that contains approximately 2.5 million bibliographic descriptions, e-biblio – an integrated catalog system used by over 1,700 schools in Poland, from elementary to high school and Bibliografia - a system that creates bibliographies integrated with digital resources, including textual and visual documents. Leveraging a hybrid cloud approach with IBM, the library workers will be able to collect materials faster and more efficiently than before. 

Any library using Trzecia Strona systems running on IBM Cloud also gains a new range of intuitive, easy to use capabilities to conduct automated cloud-based optical character recognition (OCR) services and document scans in the cloud. These activities can be done directly from an Internet browser and an unlimited number of users can access them. This helps the work of bibliographers who are keeping records of books, magazines, manuscripts, leaflets, posters and other materials, both in analog and digital form. Previously, the same type of work caused an additional task for library staff and had to be done before the file was added to the online database.

"Due to Covid-19, libraries are paying more attention to digital solutions and trying to make maximum resources available online. As a growing number of libraries have turned to us to make their collections available online, we needed a flexible cloud solution, enabling us to develop innovative services within library systems of Alfios and Bibliografia" - says Jakub Salamon, Library Systems Architect of the Trzecia Strona. “By adopting a hybrid cloud approach with IBM, we have been able to help libraries and their readers stay connected during the pandemic,” he adds.

“Throughout the pandemic industries of all kinds have needed to adapt how they operate. As libraries in Poland strive to make books accessible to readers who could not visit a library as usual, Trzecia Strona needed a new way to meet demand,” says Tomasz Zi?ba, Cloud and Data Platform Leader, IBM. “Now, after adopting a hybrid cloud approach with IBM, readers across Poland can benefit from an expanded range of digital content, and library staff can help distribute works that are important to the country’s of knowledge and culture," he adds.