Digital libraries: Challenges for 21 Century

The purpose of this presentation is to discuss digital libraries and their future. The burgeoning topic of digital libraries brings together researchers from a variety of fields. Currently, the field does not have a distinct objective that is separate from these other areas. It's tempting for researchers to believe that digital libraries is a natural extension of a well-established profession. Digital libraries can be thought of as federated databases from the standpoint of database or information retrieval. From a hypertext standpoint, digital libraries may appear to be a specific application of hypertext technology. Digital libraries may appear to be one usage of the World Wide Web from the perspective of a wide-area information service. Digital libraries may be considered as continuing a trend toward library automation from the perspective of library science.