Purpose – This paper aims to present a personal view of the development of digital libraries, starting with the original vision of 1945 and describing how it came to the dominance of online searching and reading that it has today.Design/methodology/approach – Progress in digital libraries is described in four areas: technical, economic, legal and social issues. Originally technological obstacles were dominant, but they have generally been overcome by progress in computers, networks, and algorithms. Economic issues have also faded, although “open access” questions still bedevil us. Surprisingly, libraries are now faced with more serious legal obstacles than first expected; no one today can start a digital library effort without thinking about copyright. Social issues are likely to be the next set of challenges.Findings – The transformation of searching and reading has been almost complete. Scholars in scientific disciplines, in particular, often function quite well with only rare visits to a library to rea...
['Michael Lesk']
A personal history of digital libraries