1 - Digital futures in current contexts

Summary

In the paper-based environment, libraries and information centres have been the central links in the information chain. We are, however, in the midst of a profound transition resulting from the digitization of information, and all components of the information chain are in a state of flux. The parts played by authors, publishers, libraries and other information service providers are changing, and in many instances the boundaries which have demarcated the roles of these players have become blurred.

(Dorner, 2000, 15)

Just as the method of recording human progress shifted from the quill to the printing press 500 years ago, so is it now shifting from print to digital form. The library will continue to provide books and the printed record, but must now also deliver texts, images, and sounds to the personal computers of students, faculty and the public.

(Karin Wittenborg, www.lib.virginia.edu/dlbackstage/services.html)

Introduction

The worlds of both communication and the production of information are changing rapidly, and it is the convergence of these, and the consequent huge impact on libraries and library practice, that this book aims to address. In this introductory section, we examine the background changes in communication and information over the last 50 years, and the concomitant changes in libraries, as well as the changes in the publishing industry. We give some basic technical definitions in order to elucidate some of the terms used elsewhere in the book.

This chapter will discuss the following issues:

• • the information revolution in a wired world

• • information explosion

• • the nature of digital data

• • storage and transmission of digital data

• • developments in digital data creation

• • printing and publishing

• • changes in libraries

• • digital libraries

• • automating information retrieval

• • the world wide web

• • why the world wide web is not a digital library

• • changing names for managing content

• • unresolved issues.

Information revolution in a wired world

Over the last 50 years, the computer and communications revolution has changed radically the way many organizations do their business. According to Charles Jonscher (2000), we are now living in a wired world. With old-style twisted pair telephone wiring, co-axial cable, and optical fibre there are physical communication networks almost everywhere on the globe, and the places these do not reach can be covered by satellite. Business and military communication needs have promoted most of the telecommunications developments, and the rapid growth in mobile telephony, fax and e-mail have transformed business and financial transactions.