Throughout the history of the world, libraries have been important institutions for the cultivation and preservation of humanity. Libraries are the repositories for humanity's knowledge; they are our past, our present, and our future. Cultural relevancies and temporal developments have always been deciding factors for determining the kinds of information collected. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans developed some of the greatest libraries known to the world, expanding far beyond the clerical and economic data stored in Sumerian libraries, to include many more forms of knowledge. Over the centuries, libraries continued to transform themselves to reflect the ever-changing needs of users. Today, libraries are much more than storehouses for books, journals, and newspapers, and include other forms of electronic data, however, one thing that has not changed is the universe of information is forever expanding and is continuing to do so at ever-increasing speeds.
Presently there is so much information in print that it is impossible to expect that individual libraries will have the funds to acquire, or the space to store, all of it. Has anything really changed? Almost one hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Jewett expressed concern that without one great library that everyone could take advantage of, there could never be the great dissemination of information and access to scholarly knowledge he envisioned (Jewett 1853,53). Can anyone say that a gifted student living in an outport in rural Newfoundland has access to the information he or she may need to reach their potential or even be aware that various books and research exist? The same can be said for an intellectual living in Chernobyl. Jewett also believed that many books would not be written if their authors knew in advance that other very similar books already existed, and as a result, many writers would spend their time on more constructive projects. He also insisted that scholars needed to use the latest available data to produce worthwhile literature and to stay on top of recent trends (Jewett 1853,55). Of course, that is the niche that academic journals fill, but the question must be asked again, has anything really changed at all? Many libraries cannot afford to purchase all of the increasing numbers of journals published each day, and in fact, there are universities who do not have a budget big enough to subscribe to the journals for which their own professors write.
Jewett's panacea was a union catalogue that would provide an interlibrary loan service to anyone who was interested. An admirable idea, and as we know, the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada were later founded. But is the technology now available to fulfil Charles Jewett's vision for universal access to all the knowledge that the world has to offer? The terms digital libraries and virtual libraries are being used everywhere today. Are they the answer to some of the problems being experienced by traditional libraries, or do they create problems that will never outweigh their benefits? Can any common vision be seen for the future of libraries? This essay will try to answer these questions, while presenting some of the most recent literature written on the topic. Libraries have arrived at a critical point in their history. The direction they take will hopefully be based upon careful consideration, keeping in mind both the near and distant future. What is decided upon in the next decade or so could mean the difference between carving a niche in the new frontier of an information society, and the dissolution of an institution that has been around in some form or another since the dawn of writing.
The first consideration is to decide whether to discuss the terms digital libraries and virtual libraries separately or not. The initial research using Library Literature gave some insight. When requesting a single search for virtual libraries, the response was that the preferred terminology is digital libraries. Many writers use the terms electronic, digital, and virtual interchangeably; some are on a quest for the ultimate library without walls that they call the Virtual Library; and still others see it as a futile dream that cannot be attained.
The technology that makes these terms more than the futuristic desires of men like Vannevar Bush has not been around for very long. Bush was writing at the end of World War Two and could see that the explosion of information resulting from the war effort would have to be organized and retrievable to be of any use to humanity. Nevertheless, many different challenges had to be overcome before any prototypes could be developed, including a reduction in the size of computers (the ENIAC prototype weighed thirty tons), and the creation of an effective networking system (Harden 1994,99). Both requirements have been met in the last forty years through the availability of powerful microcomputers, with higher speed modems, and the explosion of the Internet caused by the development of graphical browsers (Harden 1994,99).
Cheryl LaGuardia, Coordinator of the Electronic Teaching Center, Harvard College Library, maintains that the virtual library was promised since the 1970s, but "it became a contradiction in terms: there was no reality to it; it receded further with every hard look you gave it" (LaGuardia 1995,42). LaGuardia believes that the virtual library that could possibly close the doors of traditional institutions is nothing more than a "romantic pie-in the sky techie pipedream" (LaGuardia 1995,42). For her, virtual libraries will never be, while digital library technology can succeed and become a part of the mainstream by supplementing resources with important digital products (LaGuardia 1995,43).
Since these technological possibilities are so cutting edge, it is only realistic to expect that the terminology is equally so, and misunderstood by many. There are no fixed definitions or rules yet for the vocabulary surrounding electronic libraries, and it is quite possible that these information resources may take on a completely new name, when and if they become entrenched in society. For now, one can only muddle through and let each writer stand on his or her own merit, while providing interesting views on a bright new frontier.
The digital library was one of the main topics at the OLA's Super Conference II in Toronto in February 1996. The Director of Information Services for the University of Calgary, Alan MacDonald, began his discussion with an attempt to define digital libraries, asking if they are the same as virtual libraries, Internet libraries, electronic libraries, and libraries without walls. For him, the terms are interchangeable, with the only criteria being the ability to transmit over the Internet and receive information from it as well (MacDonald 1996,3). Additional requirements stipulate that this must be true for anyone at anytime, without the use of an intermediary librarian (MacDonald 1994,3). MacDonald cites the online searching of bibliographic databases in the early 1970s and the introduction of online catalogues as precursors to the digital library, as well as CD-ROMs (MacDonald 1994,4-5). He says that it was not until the graphical browser was introduced a few years ago that digital or virtual libraries became possible, but the challenges do not end there:
We must not lose sight of the guiding principles that transcend the technologies and modalities of the day -- imperatives such as: the Alexandrian desire to preserve; the Medieval desire to share collectively; the democratic desire for the empowerment of knowledge; Panizzi's desire to organize systematically; and Vannevar Bush's desire to retrieve effectively and conveniently (MacDonald 1994,2).
Decisions involving storage and retrieval procedures are noteworthy, as well as the fragility of storage media (it will not be the first time that libraries have to consider moving information around: push cards and beta videotapes have come and gone.), the integrity of the materials, and copyright legalities (MacDonald 1994,10-12). Walt Crawford maintains that copyright dilemmas and economic realities will assure that digital libraries will not adversely affect most publishing houses to any great degree (Crawford 1993,12).
In Living Books and Dynamic Electronic Libraries, Philip Barker offers his vision of digital and virtual libraries. For him, both are types of electronic libraries, but that is where the similarities stop. Digital libraries cannot contain any conventional books according to Barker because digital storehouses hold only digitized forms. In these new libraries reader workstations and mechanisms for remote access will be necessary for users and will include newspapers, journals, and books that are electronic (Barker 1996,494). Barker distinguishes virtual libraries as those that use the technology of virtual reality (VR) to work. Virtual libraries will allow users to manoeuvre in a library setting, with access to virtual librarians, virtual books, and virtual indexes (Barker 1996,496). He cites Treasures of the Smithsonian, published in 1993 on CD-ROM, as an example of what the future holds for libraries.
Writing in Information Technology and Libraries, Howard Harris uses the terms virtual, digital, and electronic interchangeably and forecasts that it will take the next fifteen to twenty years for the technology of virtual libraries to be integrated into library services (Harris 1996,48). Libraries may already be offering access to a variety of databases, full Internet services, and "internet based digital information" (Harris 1996,49), and they will be expected to offer more virtual library services in the future. There will be dilemmas associated with the allocation of funds for both traditional and virtual library services, and challenges as to what guidelines should be followed (Harris 1996,50). Conflicts should be expected and librarians need to prepare to bridge the troublesome gaps and help to rebuild their libraries in keeping with the virtual age (Harris 1996,50). Librarians have to continue to upgrade their skills and learn to use new search tools for the creation of an innovative library "in which a significant number of the users and the materials that they use may not be housed in the library" (Harris 1996,50).
Other writers have defined virtual/digital libraries as those that collect a variety of documents, magazines, and books in a machine-readable format, which can only be accessed digitally (Harden 1994,99). What this means is that a user can read and study materials that do not have any physical connection to them. Gary Harden writes that electronic library services are here to stay, and it is up to librarians to map out a plan, become better educated in the new technologies, and embrace the opportunities that are sure to be offered to everyone (Harden 1994,101). How many people have had the opportunity to see the Nuremburg Trial Papers before now? Project Janus is Columbia University Law School's digital library prototype. Its claim to fame is that it was the first library in the world to provide virtual library service through a supercomputer (Harden 1994,100). Besides offering users the latest in copyrighted editions, it links to tens of thousands of books and the university's archives. Virtual libraries will play a valuable role in the availability of restricted collections and contribute to their preservation (Harden 1994,100).
In many ways, Kay Cloyes' article Journey from the Vision to Reality of a Virtual Library offers a synthesis for most of the literature on digital and virtual libraries. These new libraries of the not so distant future have names ranging from online, digital, electronic, desktop, virtual, and information superhighway. Virtual libraries can be as limited as online public access computers or as sophisticated as the technology will allow (Cloyes 1994,253). What they have in common is that "a virtual library implies electronic integration of new services with traditional library services" (Cloyes 1994,253). It is a way of using technology to give library users the latest and best information that is available electronically. Cloyes points out that high costs and maintenance requirements must be carefully considered and planned for (Cloyes 1994,254-255). Rising costs in one area of a library may have to be offset with cuts in other services. The point is to investigate all of the options that are now presenting themselves, and take advantage of the experiences of other libraries that have started similar virtual library projects (Cloyes 1994,253).
The other major consideration is for library planners to decide how libraries for the 21st century will look. Margaret Beckman's Library Buildings, or Virtual Libraries? raises many issues in relation to how library buildings can integrate the new technologies and plan for future implementation. Very basic instructions are given for the capability to convert book stacks into areas that can accommodate digital library resources, such as workstations, printers, and computers, along with the needed electrical requirements (Beckman 1996,38). Provisions should be made for future loading capacities for floors in the range of 250 pounds per square foot, and the use of non-glare and task lighting (Beckman 1996,38-39). Finally, library users will need more room for their personal computers, and may expect the latest in ergonomic chairs to allow them a comfortable environment for hours of work (Beckman 1996,40).
Gary Cleveland, Network Specialist for the National Library of Canada, explains that "[p]hrases like virtual library, electronic library, libraries without walls, and most recently, digital library have all been used interchangeably to describe this broad concept" (Cleveland 1996,1). He also points out one of the common hazards of researching in the area, by saying that writers are using many different definitions to describe digital libraries. Included are the depictions of digital libraries as computer repositories, collections of objects in digital form, and one that the National Library of Canada finds quite realistic:
It is a library that carries out the traditional library functions of collection, preservation, and access provision, while integrating to an increasing degree, digital media and remotely accessible digital library services (Cleveland 1996,1).
So digital libraries do not have to remain without walls, they can operate under the same directives and perform the same functions, as they integrate another new media type into a traditional setting. Nevertheless, as Cleveland states, it will be much more challenging than the introduction of videotapes ever was because of the fluidity of digitized information and its lack of a medium (Cleveland 1996,2). Adding digital information requires online databases, and a great addition to the numbers of library computers available, but it does not stop there, and considerations have to be made for the copyright dilemmas that will certainly come up. Libraries are beginning to collect information in digital form that they may never be able to offer to library users if copyright barriers are not resolved (Cleveland 1996,2). Coupled with these restrictions are those involving cost of services (Cleveland 1996,3). Libraries try to offer most of their services free (some apply user fees to some of the new databases already), and historically they were built on Andrew Carnegie's vision of the provision of an equal level of service to all sectors of society, despite financial status. Will only the privileged be able to take advantage of such an important information technology?
The NLC has a variety of digital projects underway right now. One called Out of this World: Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy, and another that provides an overview of the life and times of classical musician Glenn Gould. One of the more fascinating is North: Landscape of the Imagination that reveals the north of Canada from an artist's perspective. The digital collection was put together using the NLC's books, magazines, manuscripts, paintings, and music of the North. All of the digital information is put in digital storehouses that Cleveland describes as "fragile, with limited lifespans" (Cleveland 1996,3). Libraries may have to move the preserved information from one system to another, updating as the technology improves (Cleveland 1996,3). What is impossible to know is how much money it will cost, and how much information will be lost to obsolescence.
There are also a number of significant American digital projects that should be discussed. Funded by the United States Congress, the Library of Congress, and both private and corporate sponsors, the National Digital Library is a consortium of fifteen of America's largest research libraries and archives, who are creating digital libraries. Included are Cornell, Yale, Harvard, and Pennsylvania State, and they are converting documents of all kinds to digital form for public accessibility across the Internet. The Library of Congress' personal contribution is called American Memory, which uses archival materials and primary sources to depict topics like the Civil War and American Architecture.
Also deserving of mention is the prominent research development called the Digital Libraries Initiative Projects that are being funded jointly by the National Science Federation (NSF), the Department of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The initiative incorporates six research universities that are developing digital storehouses of information for the Internet. Their aim is to make retrieval, processing, and searching user-friendly and more organized (Griffen 1997,1). The University of Michigan is digitizing earth and space materials; the University of Illinois is designing a digital library for engineering and science literature; the University of California at Berkeley is involved in environmental studies; Carnegie Mellon University's team is working on the access and retrievability of digitized math and science materials from video archives; and the University of California at Santa Barbara's Alexandria Project is designing a digital library for spatially-indexed information like maps, atlases, and gazetteers (Griffen 1997,3-10). Only very few research libraries are fortunate enough to have such collections of any size, and since the available digital forms are not very accessible, the Alexandria Project is attempting to put them online, with distribution across the global Internet (Goodchild 1995,1). Finally, Stanford University does not follow suit with the others and instead stipulates that it will be using their four million dollar grant to develop the technology for an "integrated Virtual Library that will provide access to large numbers of emerging information sources and collections" (Jeapes 1996,63).
The Library of Virginia completed Phase 1 of its Digital Library Project by scanning more than 600 000 images, including a collection of rare family bibles. Phase II and III will add one million archival and historical images to their collection (Jeapes 1996,63). Last year, San Francisco's $137 million library was opened. Labelled the Library for the 21st Century it has installed rooms for multimedia conferencing, multimedia workstations, three hundred high speed computers, and the new computerized database is multilingual. Director Ken Dowlin says they are ready for the explosion of digital materials, but adds that the book collection is numbered at more than one million (Jeapes 1996,64). Finally, an interesting project sponsored by the School of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan is called the Internet Public Library. Opened in 1995, it is researching ways to incorporate public library traditions with Internet resources, and is investigating how librarians can find their niche in a digital world through retraining. The interface of the Internet Public Library gives the visitor options for reference, youth, librarian services, and education, which has a virtual children's room and an exhibit hall. The links include social service information sites, and teen help resources (Balas 1996,49). In Building Virtual Libraries, Janet Balas talks about the possibility of building virtual libraries that include traditional library services (Balas 1996,48).
Considerations for the conversion of huge volumes of materials for use in a digital library are staggering as the monumental project carried out by Case Western Reserve University and sponsored by IBM has shown. The impetus for the project came from a group of Latin American scholars who wanted access to the Vatican Library for research, but were hampered by the reality of travelling to Rome and gaining admittance. The faculty members of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro asked for access through the Internet (Mintzer 1996,3).
The Vatican Library has a priceless collection of rare manuscripts, books, and pictures, including early copies of Aristotle and Homer. For F.C. Mintzer and his colleagues, their goals were fivefold: to create and capture, to store and manage, to search and access, to distribute, and to use rights management for the project (Mintzer 1995,1). The Vatican gave its consent only with the assurance that the environmental conditions would be carefully monitored while the scanning took place to protect the items, and it also insisted upon some form of digital protection for the online materials. It took a team of six, one year to reach their goal of 20 000 images, scanning an average of eighty items a day (Mintzer 1996,26).
The consortium has definitive ideas about digital libraries since their project was deemed a success, and documents some of the many problems experienced as a learning tool for others. Besides the difficulties of developing multi-server systems; the faithful capture of colour; and copyright protection concerns, there is the whole area of how to create the proper tools that scholars will need to locate and study images (Mintzer 1996,1). The team also ran into problems with deciding how different materials should be presented to users and the challenges of handling fragile and valuable materials for scanning purposes. They see digital libraries as having the same fundamental requirement of providing information as traditional libraries do, but the technology allows for additional services that provide a new realm of possibilities for users (Mintzer 1996,3). Mintzer is quick to add that there are no digital libraries in existence to date, because that "implies a massive amount of managed information, only many prior projects that have contributed to our knowledge of them" (Mintzer 1996,2). He forecasts that large-scale digital library service will be in place for universities within five years and for the public in ten (Mintzer 1996,2). Other important work in this area is being carried out by the University of California at Berkeley, under the project name: Berkeley Digital Library SunSite. An example of their endeavours is California Heritage, which provides thousands of digitized images of Californian history from their archives.
A common vision is offered in the latest literature. Researchers, librarians, computer experts, and library school academics may have slightly varying conceptions of what electronic libraries will look like, how they will function, their physical surroundings, and the extent of their infiltration into traditional libraries. Nevertheless, all agree that expanded electronic library service is needed, possible, and will resolve some of the problems that are fundamentally affecting libraries today. With limited funds and a lack of storage space, libraries are experiencing some of their worst times in recorded history and find it increasingly difficult to maintain large self-sufficient collections for users. Libraries, such as Weldon at the University of Western Ontario are even sinking with the weight of books, many of which will never be seen on the public stacks again. Having electronic versions of materials such as, encyclopaedias, reference resources, and journals, which have skyrocketed in price, would be quite beneficial for libraries. The other added bonus that digital versions of these carry is that many people can use the items at the same time, and their authors can easily update the information contained within them. This is one reason why CD-ROM versions are by their very nature, not as valuable a resource -- librarians have to keep buying the updated versions.
The other interesting theme that runs through a lot of the literature is there is no general denunciation of the technology by librarians, even though librarians' jobs and workplaces will undergo quite drastic changes. Librarians know that many problems associated with fund allocations, copyright laws, fragile storage and obsolescence, authentication, and protection of digital information resources have to be faced and overcome, but they intuitively understand the value that it can bring to the lives of library users. Users have always come first for the men and women who dedicate their lives to the dissemination of information. Some people may worry that libraries will go the way of the horse and carriage, but Walt Crawford has words of wisdom on the introduction of digital information. He says:
Libraries have never been the sole, or even the primary source of information for people. Good libraries serve many niches, but they never served as universal sources, and they never will ... by and large, the new complements the old. Print did not destroy the oral tradition, radio did not destroy newspapers. Television changed radio, newspapers, and movies but didn't destroy any of them. Home video changed the motion picture business but motion picture studios take in more money than ever (Crawford 1993,11).
Libraries will find their niche, if they remain flexible and continue to provide exemplary service in whatever format that users desire. There will definitely be people who prefer to walk into a library to borrow a book, rather than download every book they want to read. As well, there will be many who can never hope to have the technology at home to access a truly Virtual Universal Library. What will happen to those people? Jewett's dream of a universal library is within our grasp, and it can only be a good thing to experience other cultures and eras through the examination of digital collections. The downside is that libraries and individuals will need the proper technological equipment, and some will not be able to afford it.
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