Aka: Paperless library, library without walls, networked library, desktop library, logical library, electronic library, digital library, information management center.
"The term ‘electronic library’ means many things to many people and in any study . . . the reader must be aware of the myriad interpretations which are applied to it, as the terminology has not yet settled."
J. Day, "Higher education, teaching, learning and the electronic library," The new review of academic librarianship ,2 (1996)
"The meaning of ‘digital libraries’ continues to evolve as technology advances and, more importantly, as people explore new possibilities . . it is important to prevent a definition . . . from prematurely ‘hardening’ –that is, to keep the definition as open as possible for as long as possible."
Stephen M. Griffin, Program Manager of the Digital Libraries Initiative at the National Science Foundation, "Taking the initiatives for digital libraries," Electronic Library 16.1 (1998) 24.
"The virtual library "might be seen as a machine with many simultaneous users, each of whom perceives that he has the whole collection to himself, and further through connections to other libraries . . . access to to much greater resources than are physically present . . . one where the user has the illusion of access to a much larger collection of information than is really present, immediately or simultaneously."
A.J. Harley (Head of Computing and Data communication for the British Library’s Lending Division), 1980 cited in Wahlde and Schiller, 15.
" . . . a vision of the library of the twenty-first century in which computers and telecommunications technologies make possible access to a wide range of electronic resources. A virtual library . . . could cover any number of attempts to provide wider library services via computer . . ."
Barbara von Wahlde and Nancy Schiller, "Creating the Virtual Library: Strategic Issues" in The Virtual Library: Visions and Realities, ed. Laverna M. Saunders (London: Meckler, 1993) 15, 43.
" . . . the concept of remote access to the contents and services of libraries and other information resources, combining an on-site collection of current and heavily used materials in both print and electronic form, with an electronic network which provides access to, and delivery from, external worldwide library and commercial information and knowledge sources."
D.Kaye Gapen, "The Virtual Library: Knowledge, Society, and the Librarian," in The Virtual Library: Visions and Realities, ed. Laverna M. Saunders (London: Meckler, 1993) 1.
"An organized collection of multimedia data with information management methods that represent the data as useful information and knowledge to people in a variety of social and organizational contexts."
Stephen M. Griffin, "Taking the initiatives for digital libraries," Electronic Library 16.1 (1998) 24.
" . . . an organized and managed collection of information in a variety of media (text, still image, sound, or combinations thereof, but all in digital form."
C. Oppenheim, "Editorial," International Journal of Electronic Library Research 1:1 (1997)
"The digital library is an information service in which all the information resources are available in computer-processable form, and the functions of acquisition, storage, preservation, retrieval, access and display are carried out through the use of digital technologies."
Charles Oppenheim and Daniel Smithson, "What is the hybrid library?" Journal of Information Science 25.2 (1999) 97
"A digital library is a library that maintains all, or a substantial part, of its collection in computer-processible form as an alternative supplement, or complement to the conventional printed and microfilm materials that currently dominate library collections."
William Saffady, "Digital Library Concepts and Technologies for the Management of Library Collections: An Analysis of Methods and Costs." Library Technology Reports 21 (1995) 221.