Oceania
North America
Europe
Libraries of Europe
Austria
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Australia (^)
- E-Journal "Ariadne" on Australian Libraries
- issue 8 (March 1997) : projects of electronic libraries in Australia
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue8/australia.html- issue 9 (May 1997) : further projects of electronic libraries in Australia
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue9/australia.html
New Zealand (^)
- Witten, Ian H. and McNab, Rodger "The New Zealand Digital Library: collections and experiences" (The Electronic Library, vol. 15, n° 6, December 1997, pp.495-504)
- The New Zealand Digital Library (The University of Waikato)
Canada (^)
- Initiative Canadienne sur les bibliothèques numériques
USA (^)
- Lowry, Charles B. et Richards, Barbara G. "Courting Discovery : Managing Transition to the Virtual Library" (Library Hi Tech, issue 48, 1994, pp.7-13)
Presentation of the Mercury Project at the Library of the Mellon Carnegie University. The project started around the middle of 1980's. In this article, written in 1994, the authors forecast the passage of the library to a virtual library, with better access in terms of speed and links to the sources of information (data banks, Internet, CD-Rom, electronic journals).
- Thorn, Suzanne E. "The National Digital Library. Digitization at the Library of Congress" (Liber, 5, 1995, pp.145-157)
Presentation of the objectives of the Library of Congress and how they will be achieved. A Committee of coordination for the Digital Library initially suggested some preliminary steps and then drafted a plan of intervention. In 1995 more than 7000 people accessed every day the Library having at their disposal more than 40 million of bibliographic references, included the complete catalogue of the library.
- Billington, James H. et alii "Summary Sessions: Steps needed to create a National Digital Library" (Liber, 5, 1995, pp.137-141)
The main features to take into consideration for setting up a National Digital Library are identified in: a close collaboration with resource centres external to the library (telephone companies, schools, experts in multimedia and coursewares, etc.); the development of graphic interfaces attracting the attention and the interest of the users; the research of common standards. On the whole, the Digital National Library must become an example for other projects of Digital Libraries with respect to design and implementation.
- Jeapes, Ben "Digital libraries projects: where they are now - part one" (vol. 13, no. 6, December 1995, pp.551-554)
- Jeapes, Ben "Digital libraries projects: where they are now - part two" (vol. 14, no. 1, February 1996, pp.62-64)
Presentation of the current projects in six American universities: the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Santa Barbara; the Carnegie Mellon University; the University of Illinois; the University of Michigan; the University of Stanford, California. The author offers data on each project and illustrates the actual state of progress (end 1995).
- Dowler, Lawrence and Farwell, Laura "The Gateway: A Bridge to the Library of the Future" (Reference Services Review, summer 1996, pp.7-11)
The project of 'Gateway Library' at the Lamont University Library of Harvard has represented the passage from the classic library based on paper documents to the virtual library that relies on information circulating through the network. The strategic objectives of the 'Gateway Library' have been singled out in the 1) research of information in whatever support available; 2) evaluation of the information in order to transform it into knowledge; 3) selection of the information through appropriate instruments.
- Fox, Robert "Tomorrow's Library Today" (Communication of the ACM, January 1997, vol. 40, no.1, pp.20-21)
Short presentation of the SIBL project (Science, Industry and Business Library) in New York and of the SFPL project (San Francisco Public Library). In the Centre of Electronic Resources in New York, 70 places give access to more than 100 CD-Rom of data banks, on-line journals and Internet sites. Every day more than 2500 people use the service. In San Francisco the daily users are around 5000 and the lending has gone up by more than 75% comparing to the old library. The author highlights the fact that the amount of investment in libraries and the rate of change have gone up tremendously in recent time.
- To visit (websites mentioned in the articles) :
- Library of Congress : http://www.loc.gov
- University of California, Berkeley (Digital Library) : http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/
- University of California, Santa Barbara : http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu
- San Francisco Library : http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/
- Stanford University : http://dbpubs.stanford.edu:8091/diglib/pub/history.shtml
- The Science, Industry and Business Library (New York) : http://www.nypl.org/research/sibl/
Libraries of Europe (^)
To navigate:The European Library
http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/
Austria (^)
- Library of the University of Vienna : http://ub.univie.ac.at/
Note : full-text books and links to other libraries in Austria and elsewhere.
Denmark (^)
- Det Kongelike Bibliotek : http://www.kb.dk/
- Note : Books from the Royal Library's online catalogue are now available as e-Books.
Finland (^)
- Haavisto, Tuula "Internet dans les bibliothèques finlandaises" (BBF, no. 3, 1997, pp.64-69)
Summary : The essay presents the beginning of Internet in Finland (February 1994 : Library of Helsinki) and the current state (1996) of access to Internet (60% of the libraries). Other projects are also surveyed such as: the Project of the House of Knowledge; the Project of the Information Society.
- To visit :
- Public Libraries in Finland : http://www.kirjastot.fi/
- The National Library of Finland : http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/finelib/english/index.html
France (^)
- Lahary, Dominique "Les bibliothèques françaises sur Internet : petite typologie" (no. 174, 1997, pp.122-123)
Summary : Lists and addresses of French libraries, institutions and associations that deal with French books and French culture on the Internet.
- Maignien, Yannick "Bibliothèques numériques : les aiguilleurs du Web" (ABF, no.174, 1997, pp.126-130)
Summary : The author examines three aspects: the policy of documentation (the organization of knowledge), the policy of access (the digitalization of documents) and the policy of cooperation through the network (the circulation of knowledge). The stress is on how easy is to access electronic documents and what are the obstacles to their diffusion.
- Bogros, Olivier "La bibliothèque électronique de Lisieux" (ABF, no.174, 1997, pp.124-125)
Summary : Presentation of the Library of Lisieux (Normandy) and the services offered; it contains also many links to the cultural resources of the region (museums, universities, etc.) and of the French speaking world (directories, libraries on the Internet). This web site represents one of the best examples of what can be achieved by a performing library even in a small town (around 24.000 inhabitants in 1990).
http://www.bmlisieux.com/- To navigate :
- BPI (Bibliothèque Publique d’Information)
- ABF (Association des bibliothécaires français)
Note : These web sites give access to electronic libraries mainly in French and English.
Germany (^)
- Bunzel, Jûrgen "A Survey of Computer Applications in German Libraries" (Liber, 4, 1994, pp.261-273)
Presentation of the experience at the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft = German Society of Research) and at the regional centres for library electronic services. In the final part of the article are listed the main features that characterize a virtual library seen as "a universal information warehouse."
- Enderle, Wilfried "En route vers la bibliothèque numérique. Les projets en Allemagne" (BBF, no. 3, 1997, pp.60-63)
Summary : Short presentation of some projects, in particular the project GBV (Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverband = General Association of Libraries) conducted by seven Länder, and the project Webdoc, a collaboration between Dutch and German libraries for the common access to digital documents.
- Rusch-Feja, Diann "Subject-Oriented Collection of Information Resources from the Internet" (Libri, 1997, vol. 47, pp.1-24)
Summary : Presentation of the experience of the Max Planck Institute of Berlin. In order to provide structured information, the Institute has decided to select and organize information available on the Net related to specific areas of intervention of the Institute (e.g. cognitive psychology, human development). This will facilitate the researcher in the process of acquisition and evaluation of data.
- To visit :
- Die Deutsche Biblioteck : http://www.ddb.de/
Italy (^)
- To visit :
- Associazione Italiana Biblioteche (AIB-WEB) : http://www.AIB.it/
especially "Biblioteche Virtuali" : http://www.aib.it/aib/lis/vrd.htm
Netherlands (^)
- van Gils, Wouter "The precarious position between content and technology: libraries seeking their future" (The Electronic Library, vol. 13, no. 6, December 1996, pp.533-537)
Summary : Introduction to the services of the KNAW (Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences) and to the plan of action for the years 1995-1999 that aims at developing an electronic library in the area of bio-medical information, in collaboration with publishers, data providers, users.
- Bakker, Trix "La bibliothèque virtuelle. Conséquences sur le développement des collections aux Pays-Bas" (BBF, no. 3, 1997, pp.55-59)
Summary : The network linking the Dutch libraries under the project called PICA (PICA = Project for Integrated Catalogue Automation) includes in its catalogue the documents of more than 400 Libraries, with more than 7 million titles and 455.000 periodicals. According to the author, the access to the network means, for the users, to be able to use a virtual library (consulting the catalogue, receiving books on loan, exploring data bases, obtaining photocopies of documents, etc.).
- To visit :
- Bibliotheek van de Universiteit van Amsterdam : http://www.uba.uva.nl/
See the "Digitale bibliotheek" : http://www.uba.uva.nl/digital_library/home.cfm
Switzerland (^)
- To visit :
- Nebis (Network of Libraries and Information Centers in Switzerland)
http://www.nebis.ch/index_e.html- SWITCH (The Swiss Education & Research Network)
http://www.switch.ch/libraries/
United Kingdom (^)
- To navigate:
- Electronic Library Program
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/
- Bath University Library : http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/
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