Digital Library Competence Center

Digital library technologies will dominate the Internet of the 21st century. As the global information infrastructure becomes an essential part of everyday life, digital libraries will become a necessary component of this infrastructure. They will become one of the major tools that provide European citizens with access to scientific knowledge and to information on their cultural heritage. Independently of the extent to which librarians, archivists and museum curators are happy with this vision of the future, they are now demanding knowledge of digital library technologies and of the new type of services that digital libraries can deliver. To satisfy this demand, a Digital Library Competence Center has been set up in Pisa, Italy, coordinated by IEI-CNR, under a contract from the EC IST Programme (IST-2001-32587). The Institute has a well-consolidated experience in the research and development of various types of advanced digital library systems. The objective of the Centre is to provide specific user communities, eg librarians, archivists, scholars and technicians, with access to advanced digital library services, expertise and training that will allow them to understand and use these new technologies.