The Digital Library: A Biography

Digital libraries, once project based and largely autonomous efforts, are maturing. As individual programs have grown, each has developed its own personality, reflecting the circumstances of its creation and environment, and its leadership. This report from CLIR and the Digital Library Federation (DLF) draws on the results of a survey and case studies of DLF members to reveal how these influences have molded a range of organizational forms that we call the digital library. The report is written by Daniel Greenstein and Suzanne Thorin. Greenstein, formerly the director of the DLF, is now university librarian for systemwide library planning and scholarly information and director of the California Digital Library. Thorin is the dean of university libraries at Indiana University. Section one of the report examines three stages of digital library growth: the young digital library, the maturing digital library, and the adult digital library. Section two of the report presents case studies of digital library development at six institutions