This will be unpopular but that is wrong with the cloud
Can someone please explain why all the hate for cloud? apart from the fact its someone else's computers not some magical place that some people think it is why the hate?
The British Library is not an IT organisation so why shouldn't it use someone else's computes, network, colocation abilities.... if they do it all themselves they need two separate offsite locations and all the various connections, power, cooling.. set up with redundancies for both sites, and they need the machines for both sites. Then they need a team of people to set up both sites configure replication, security patching, and then they need another team to physically secure both sites and maintain them. After they have done all that then can then set up what they actually need to enable them to do what they do. and in 3, maybe 5, years they'll need to replace all the machines, connections, cooling....
If were being honest (I'll say it again the British Library is not an IT company), if they did it all on premises they will be lucky to get one and a half on site locations with just enough power and cooling with no, or very little redundancy, some overly complex and expensive replication software, with support fees so high they're in orbit, and is that's never quite set up right so it doesn't actually work but it will any day now. Security that's just about ok, except for Ruth as she can't see the need for all this MFA stuff and anyway she's so good she'll never be hacked (ok cloud wont do much for this but it does allow IT to say its clouds fault you must have MFA). Patching that just needs to be held off for some important reason, like Steve must be able to use the VBA script he's got that the new patch will break, and he hasn't got time to change the full stop to a comer, and lets not forget the group of servers under Angelo's desk that have been left out of the patching schedule as only Angelo knows they exist. Oh and the replacement of equipment will always be put off as the budget is needed for something else so nothing is ever updated and if something does fail the software is so old it cant run on newer machines
Physical IT has become like a powerplant its essential to modem life, but you don't need to buy, setup, maintain, and run your own. You buy the output of the powerplant and only buy what you need and if you need more you buy more if you need less you buy less. The powerplant owner has all the expense of setting up, running and maintaining it you don't so charges you more for the power than it costs them to produce. You could run your own powerplant and get power a bit cheaper but most of us don't know how to or can afford to buy, set up, maintain, and run a one, and what do we do with any excess power, or if we don't have enough.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
