Digital Libraries

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Collections

Most people tend to think of a library collection in a particular topic area as a static entity. Although this is hardly the case for traditional print collections, it is absolutely incorrect for digital library collections. The number of WWW sites is doubling at the rate of approximately every six months, (see "Internet Statistics"). Internet Archive statistics collected in May 1998 estimated the number of Web pages at 140 million, based on the number of pages indexed by the Alta-Vista search engine. (Web Techniques magazine published a good article in May '97 explaining how search engines index Web pages.)

The old idea of a library containing encyclopedic depositories of information is dying. Librarians are shifting the focus of their collections to indepth material in particular areas with links to other librarys' collections around the globe.

Connections

The majority of libraries are not connected together as envisioned by the field of Digital Libraries. Work upon the digital library networks is being undertaken. For one example of a digital library connection network see the CTT Community Network (CTTnet) provided by the University of Waterloo in Canada. The CTTnet project is based upon the idea of a connected community network. (If the previous CTTnet server is unreachable, the Univ. of Waterloo maintains an alternate server with information about CTTnet.)

An even earlier example of this type of network is the Blacksburg Electronic Village.

Some Sample Collections

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