Technologies of Information: HCI and the digital library

Digital libraries represent the latest and perhaps the most important stage in the transformation of our relationship to information and its supporting technologies. While the World Wide Web has raised to broad consciousness the ideas of rapid, remote access to vast collections of distributed, hyperlinked documents, users are as often confused and disoriented by such resources as they are empowered. As we enter the new millennium the possibilities for new forms of information seem boundless. Meeting the design challenges requires HCI to offer valid, reliable and timely guidance. At the same time, the creation of digital libraries provides a research forum for HCI that is rich, relevant and receptive to our inputs. The present chapter will briefly examine the initiation of the digital library concept, the early HCI involvement in this domain and present a vision of the future of HCI research and design for new information technologies.