Abstract:
With growing emphasis on technology, libraries have undergone major structural change in terms of their collection, organization and services. The traditional concept of a library is becoming obsolete with the emergence of new ‘digital’ means of storing and disseminating information over the Internet. Compared to the physical organization of documents, there is more emphasis on technology – computer hardware, software, storage formats, network connectivity, etc. Digital libraries do have many advantages over printed material, but require higher skills and hardware for creating, organizing and delivering the information to the users on their desktops.
Copyright, licensing and other legal issues become very crucial while creating digital libraries. The new digital initiatives can have far reaching consequences on traditional libraries, which may have to adopt new strategies for collection-building, physical organization, delivery of information and manpower deployment.
