Definitions are formulated to serve specific purposes.
The research community's definitions serve to identify
and focus attention on research problems and to expand
the community of interest around those problems.
The library community's definitions focus
on practical challenges involved
in transforming library institutions and services.
Hence neither the research community nor library community definitions
are particularly helpful
in categorizing the vast array of databases available on the Internet,
on proprietary services and on CD-ROMs.
Given the rapid expansion of computer networks, distributed access to information
resources, electronic publishing, distance-independent learning, electronic commerce and related
technologies, vastly more research on all aspects of digital libraries is needed. Technological
developments, structural changes in the way universities are funded, escalating costs of
information resources, demographics and other factors combine to make the transformation of
research libraries an urgent challenge. Attention to digital libraries research and practice, under
all of these definitions, will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.
In exploring these definitions, we find that the research community's definitions have evolved
from a narrower view emphasizing enabling technologies to one that encompasses the social,
behavioral and economic contexts in which digital libraries are used. That view also has
expanded from a primary emphasis on information retrieval to include the full life cycle of
creating, seeking, using, preserving and disposing of information resources. The library
community has voiced the term `digital library' for some years, but only recently has
promulgated formal definitions. The working definition set forth by the Digital Libraries
Federation appears to capture the senses in which practicing librarians intend the term.
At present, the term `digital library' is being used with two distinctly dierent meanings.
Taken together, the two definitions result in a tautology: a digital library is an institution that
provides digital libraries. Both definitions are problematic because they confuse the boundaries
between electronic collections and institutions. Underlying most of the research-oriented
definitions is a constrained view of the nature of libraries. Yet using the term to imply the
broader view favored by librarians constrains the institution by the type of content it collects.
Neither community is likely to surrender the term in favor of another. Given this inherent
conflict of interest, people using the term need to define what they mean in context. The failure
to define terms slows the development of theory, research and practice. It also limits the ability
to communicate the scope of the area or the nature of the research and practice problems to
others. While all parties need not agree on one meaning, each can be more explicit in
explaining choices of terminology. Sometimes we simply may need to agree to disagree. Words
do matter and will influence the success of our ventures. I hope this article will stimulate
discussion of what digital libraries are and what they can be in the future.