Contents: Preface. 1. Digital library: measurement and management. 2. Virtual library and management issues. 3. Toward future: web forms. 4. Electronic reference services. 5. Emergence of electronic serials. 6. Requirements for the digital research library. 7. The digital electronic library. 8. Future of print-based serials. 9. Management of information and library services in the 21 century. 10. Production of information materials. 11. Digital preservation. Appendices. Select bibliography. Glossary of library terms. Index.

"Once passive storehouses, libraries have become active agents of a social change and early adopters of new information and communication technologies. The range of materials and media they handle has diversified enormously in the last decade. Access to full-text databases, networked resources and multimedia information systems has become the norm in a matter of years, fueled in no small measure by the prodigious growth of the internet and World Wide Web. The coming years promise even greater advances--global digital libraries, intelligent interfaces, interactive books, collaboratories, intelligent agents, virtual reality.

The present book complies highly useful information encompassing various crucial issues pertaining to libraries of modern times, rightly known as digital age."