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History of Digital Libraries

The document summarizes the history and development of digital libraries. It discusses how digital libraries began in 1945 when Vannevar Bush published an article proposing the idea of accessing scholarly documents electronically. This inspired further research leading to personal computers, the internet, and search engines. The concept of digital libraries emerged in the late 1980s, driven by developments in digital technology and a desire to share information. Early digital libraries were collections on CD-ROMs or personal/organizational systems. Major funding in 1994 helped establish the first large-scale digital library projects at universities. Conferences in the 1990s discussed perspectives on digital libraries and their growing acceptance.

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Syazwan Salim
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3K views3 pages

History of Digital Libraries

The document summarizes the history and development of digital libraries. It discusses how digital libraries began in 1945 when Vannevar Bush published an article proposing the idea of accessing scholarly documents electronically. This inspired further research leading to personal computers, the internet, and search engines. The concept of digital libraries emerged in the late 1980s, driven by developments in digital technology and a desire to share information. Early digital libraries were collections on CD-ROMs or personal/organizational systems. Major funding in 1994 helped establish the first large-scale digital library projects at universities. Conferences in the 1990s discussed perspectives on digital libraries and their growing acceptance.

Uploaded by

Syazwan Salim
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Muhammad Syazwan bin Salim

2014918969 Elektif_A IML651


A digital library is libraries that store its collections in electronic form. By the term
electronic, it means the materials in digital library are only accessible through computer using
internet or CD-ROM (Compact disk read only memory). The digital libraries collection consists
of various types of material such as book, journal, magazine, articles, video and many others
types of materials depending on the goals and functions of the digital library.
The digital library can be owned and maintained by individuals, organizations, library
that has its physical building, and academic institutions. The collection of digital library may be
stored locally or remotely accessible through established networks by users.
As we can see today, the digital library is one of humans achievements. Every
organizations, corporate bodies, and academic institutional have their own digital library. Digital
library has become one of individual needs. This situation shows that digital library is accepted
in society. There are stories behind the achievement of digital library.
The history of digital library began in circa 1945 when Vannevar Bush published a 10
pages long article titled As We May Think on July 1945 in American Magazine, The Atlantic.
This article suggesting an idea of sitting at a keyboard and viewing any scholarly document that
you wished to see and inspired the information retrieval field. Although it seems illogical during
that time, it finally become true when many researchers realized it is possible and the outcomes
are the development of personal computers, the web, and search engines.
After decades later, it is not clear when the first ever digital library is being created. The
concept of digital library not exists until late of 1980s. There are two main forces that trigger the
development of the digital library during this time. First is development of digital technology
such as multimedia and networking that caused an efficient information processing and
information management. Second are peoples that want a better sharing of important information
such as library materials and education and research databases.

At the early stage, digital libraries are digital collection and information systems for
personal information resources, workgroup and organizational information collections, and
collaborations environments. After that, many libraries started changing card catalog to OPAC
systems and store abstract and periodicals on CD-ROMS.
In 1989, the World Wide Web being introduced and grow rapidly since 1993. The WWW
is dubbed as the beginning of digital library. But, at this early stage, there are plenty of rooms for
improvement to establish a digital library.
The first major acknowledgement of importance of the digital library is high level of
attention and first funding was given to digital libraries. In 1994, US

federal fund announce

$24.4 million would be dispersed to six potential digital libraries that led to era with large
number of visions and projects.
This funding came through a joint initiative of the National Science Foundation (NSF),
the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The projects were at Carnegie Mellon
University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the University of
Illinois, the University of California-Santa Barbara, and Stanford University.
These six well-funded projects helped set in motion the popular definition of a "digital
library." These projects were computer science experiments, primarily in the areas of architecture
and information retrieval.
Various kinds of conferences, workshops, and forums on digital libraries were held, and
many articles discussing about many perspectives on digital libraries since 1995. The conference
was mostly discussing about digital library. The conference receives quite large numbers of
participants. It shows the acceptance of digital libraries in the society.
As conclusion, it is hoped that digital libraries will continually emerged for the society
own good. With the existence of digital libraries, users can access the collection anytime and
anywhere. This will make them easy to find information that meet with their needs. Digital
libraries can become one of our societys cultures.

References
Ali, A. (2005). Digital libraries in the making. New Delhi: Ess Ess Publications.
Besser, H. (n.d.). The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Libraries. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
Michael Lesk, (2012),"A personal history of digital libraries", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 30 Iss 4 pp. 592 603
doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/07378831211285077

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