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A digital library is a collection of documents in organized electronic form, available on the internet or on CD-ROM (compact-disk read-only memory) disks. Depending on the specific library, a user may be able to access magazine articles, books, papers, images, sound files, and videos. Digital libraries contain diverse information for use by many different users. Digital libraries range in size from tiny to huge. They can use any type of computing equipment and any suitable software. The goal of this guide is based on the unifying theme that information is organized on computers and available over a network, with procedures to select the material in the collections, to organize it, to make it available to users, and to archive it.
Over the centuries, libraries have been the keepers and distributors of books, journals, maps and other materials that are used by students in the learning process. They have also been the legal deposit of part of the products of scholarly publications ? theses & dissertations, articles, technical reports, etc. Digital library is commonly seen as a type of information retrieval system which stores and accesses digital content remotely via computer networks. However, the vision of digital libraries is not limited to technology or management, but user experience. Rapid advances in information technologies have revolutionized the role of libraries. As a result, libraries face new challenges, competitors, demands, and expectations. Libraries are redesigning services and information products to add value to their services and to satisfy the changing information needs of the user community. Traditional libraries are still handling largely printed materials that are expensive and bulky. Information seekers are no longer satisfied with only printed materials. They want to supplement the printed information with more dynamic electronic resources. Demands for digital information are increasing. Digital libraries will start gaining ground in the present century. We are heading toward an environment in which digital information may substitute for much print-based information. A library?s existence does not depend on the physical form of documents. Its mission is to link the past and the present, and help shape the future by preserving the records of human culture, as well as integrating emerging information technologies. Digital libraries attempt to provide instant access to digitized information and consist of a variety of information, including multimedia.
Illustrated Handbook of Digital Libraries is intended to provide a comprehensive coverage of progress and development in digital libraries, with emphasis on the foundational innovations, vision, motivations, new technology, funding and early programs that prompted their emergence and rapid development. Library and Information Science unfold through digital libraries. Scientists, scholars, teachers, learners, and practitioners of all kinds benefit from the distributed and collaborative knowledge environments that are at the heart of the digital library movement. Consequently libraries acquired a great importance in the knowledge society. Libraries which have been variously referred to as the purveyor of information, the custodian of knowledge, and the house of learning plays a vital role in the development of any society by catering for the information needs of thousands of peoples within a particular community. Digital library represents distributed information systems enabling reliable accumulation, preservation, and effective use of diverse electronic document collections that are available to users in a convenient format through the global data transfer networks. Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it. As such, the cost of maintaining a digital library is much lower than that of a traditional library.
Illustrated Handbook of Digital Libraries is an attempt to the operations of digital libraries. To indicate interdisciplinary routes towards successful applications, the chapters in this book explore the implication of digital libraries from the perspectives of design, operation, and promotion.
