Gensthaler: How Many Small Libraries Can Be a Large Library

Abstract

The success of the Internet has caused a significant change in the way of literature supply. Not only traditional libraries, booksellers and publishing houses have begun to enter the new digital world and offer their services world-wide, completely new information providers have been developed such as digital libraries, delivery services, citation services, and bibliographic databases. The amount of knowledge and information available world-wide grows every day. However, very few people will be able to access all the information that is available, since the information is distributed among a large number of computers and databases. People need assistance to gain the whole utility from the new situation. The idea presented in this paper is to integrate library and information services worldwide, so that they build a large virtual library with different services, offering the user a uniform access to the system.