Companies of all sizes are grappling with the impact of “big data.” As an information management and scientific document delivery company, our global customers are heavily impacted by big data. The definition of big data is evolving at a rapid pace. For the purpose of discussion, let’s use the “Three V’s” definition which is as follows. This particular definition is from SAP’s blog titled “What Is Big Data?” by Michael Brenner, published on May 9, 2012, although the Three V’s definition is broadly used throughout the industry.

“In 2001 Gartner analyst Doug Laney defined the three major problems created by the explosion of information in the Big Data era – Volume, Velocity, and Variety (Three V’s).

• Volume – the sheer amount of data being created doubles the amount of available storage, and 95% of this data is complex or unstructured in nature.
• Velocity – data has become a strategic asset being used as a basis for competitive advantage; the faster a company can access, manipulate, and gain insights on its data, the better.
• Variety – there are countless sources and types of data today; moving outside of the corporate firewall with sensors, social media, photos, and video to name a few.”

Mobile Library™ as an information management tool addresses primarily, although not exclusively, the issue of Velocity. The International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM – www.stm-assoc.org) published a study in 2009 by Mark Ware Consulting which reported that the number of scientific articles published each year has grown at a slow but steady pace of about 3% per year for over 100 years.

That said, Mobile Library has the largest collections of STM content in the industry and most requests for journal articles and other content can be delivered in 5 minutes or less. As a cloud-based system, Mobile Library is able to offer some insights into the data by providing the end user with valuable information on additional content related to their specific request. The business value of a cloud-based document delivery service that incorporates secure social media has been well documented in a recently published thought leadership briefing. We invite you to download your complimentary copy by clicking here.