The Future of Digital Libraries

摘要

Digital Libraries are omnipresent nowadays. Almost every single institution is hosting its own. Sometimes they even use their own servers and customized software to provide information to users. However, a single isolated Digital Library is valueless. It must be connected "to the world": to users as well as to content and services provided by other Digital Library systems. Since it is not possible for an information provider to host every single information of a specific topic locally at its server, a portal might be the right solution. In this article we will give an overview of some necessary features of Digital Libraries. Linking to electronic and traditional resources are essential and must be available to users of the systems. Interactive features such as adding annotations to existing material must also be available. A sketch of aspects about personalization will close the discussion.