Digital Libraries for the Next Millennium: Challenges and Research Directions

The unprecedented growth of Internet technologies has made resources on the World Wide Web instantly accessible to various user communities through digital libraries. Since the early 1990s, there have been several digital library initiatives sponsored by government agencies and/or private organizations all over the world. A digital library is a networked system environment that provides diverse user communities with coherent, seamless and transparent access to large, organized, and digitized information resources. This article provides a comprehensive overview of major digital library projects that are currently being undertaken across the globe. We also identify and discuss major challenges and research issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of digital libraries for the next millennium. We believe that digital libraries are ripe with research opportunities, offer many challenges, and will continue to grow in the next several years.