digital libraries are themselves becoming
`enabling technologies'
for many other applications.
Contributing materials to DLs is a form of electronic publishing
and materials published electronically are collected, organized,
preserved and disseminated electronically.
Distance-independent learning requires that content be associated with instruction, hence DLs are an essential component.
Software that supports computer-supported
cooperative work must include a means
to manage the associated work products,
which is a digital library problem. And so on.
Many fundamental technical problems in digital libraries research remain to be solved. As
digital libraries become more sophisticated, more practical and more embedded in other
applications, the challenges of understanding their uses and users become ever more urgent.
These are inherently interdisciplinary problems and will require the contribution of researchers
from many backgrounds. Some of them have yet to hear the term `digital libraries', much less
recognize that their interests are relevant.
Digital libraries as institutions or services stand to bene®t from research on almost all
aspects of digital libraries as content, collections and communities. Research libraries and
universities engaged in reinventing themselves for a digital age will need to draw upon the best
research, theory and practice from a myriad of disciplines. These are urgent challenges. As
Hawkins (1998) puts it, the traditional library is unsustainable in its present form.
Conversely, researchers studying many digital library problems will need partnerships with
library institutions to study and test in operational settings. This is especially true of research
on social, behavioral and economic aspects of digital libraries. Partnerships with other
information institutions such as archives, museums and schools will be essential as well.