Man’s quest for knowledge has led to the creation and accumulation of tremendous amount of information. This quest for knowledge knows no bounds and limits and is never satisfied. It has continued since the dawn of civilization to the modern age. During this age digital library has gained immense popularity. Digital Library, the storehouse of books, manuals and manuscripts has taken roots when written manuscripts have been made available for references. However, developments in science and technology brought about a major shift from handwritten manuscripts to print media on eco-friendly paper and further to digital format.
Digital Library online is a subset of the large format library with collections stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. With an inbuilt information retrieval system, the digital content stored either can be accessed locally, or remotely via computer networks. Further the wide use of the Internet and the World Wide Web has expanded the power of networks making it feasible to access the digital library online.
However, with demands from customers and end-users for a more techno friendly access method to the paperback edition of books, manuals and journals, enterprises are in the process of digitizing content Academic libraries are in the process of building institutional repositories of digitized content of the institutions books, papers and thesis to make these accessible to end-users across the globe. However, technological innovations such as optical character recognition and e-books facilitated large scale digitization projects leading to digital libraries with Internet archives of computer articles, technological magazines, research papers as well as presentations.
One of the major advantages of digital libraries is the ease with which the books, archives and images can be accessed. Moreover unlike the traditional libraries, where space is an issue, these have the potential to store volumes. Further, the cost of maintenance of the digital library is much less than that of the traditional. Today as digital world expands, enterprises and institutions adopt technological innovations to provide end-users with a digital library online.
Digital libraries without physical boundaries facilitate easy information retrieval and preservation and conservation of content. The 24/7 availability and multiple access of these libraries helps institutions, enterprises, corporate sector establishments and business houses make use of electronically accessible computer magazines, articles, journals ,periodical etc. from technological societies and conduct information technology training for their workforce on the latest technological developments.
