Towards a National Agency for Resource Discovery Beyond the Beginning: The Global Digital Library

Title: Beyond the Beginning: The Global Digital Library
Editor: The Marc Fresko Consultancy
Report ID: British Library Research and Innovation Report 78 [RIC/DG/009]
Date: 1997
ISBN 0172397027
© The British Library Board 1997
© Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Bodies 1997

The report is of the conference, Beyond the Beginning: The Global Digital Library, an international conference organised by UKOLN on behalf of JISC, CNI, BLRIC, CAUSE and CAUL.

The report is available at the following URLs:

• in the UK http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/papers/bl/blri078/content/
  
• in the USA http://www.cni.org/ (forthcoming)
  
• in Australia http://www.anu.edu.au/caul/mirror/global/content/

It may also be purchased as photocopies or microfiche from the British Thesis Service, British Library Document Supply Centre, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, LS23 7BQ Telephone +44 1937 546229 Fax +44 1937 546286 E-mail dsc-british-thesis-service@bl.uk

Abstract (From Editor's Note)

A number of consistent themes emerged from the conference. These themes concern:

• the developing world of digital information, and its impacts on professionals and infrastructures;
• research and development programmes, notably those of the European Union, the UK’s eLib, the British Library, Japan, and Die Deutsche Bibliothek;
• the changing relationships between information, education and learning, with their fascinating and tantalising glimpses of possible societal futures;
• measuring activities in the information field, in real institutions and in research environments;
• progress in the essential field of metadata, where efforts continue to make the internet live up to its potential by making its contents easy to navigate;
• recent developments in the domain of user authentication;
• current issues in the fraught area of intellectual property, source of thorny problems made even sharper when global requirements are taken into account.

The conference presentations are organised within these themes, rather than following the order of presentation.

British Library papers and reports