The challenges encountered in building the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL), a freely available online library of children’s literature are described. These challenges include selecting and processing books from different countries, handling and presenting multiple languages simultaneously, and addressing cultural differences. Unlike other digital libraries that present content from one or a few languages and cultures, and focus on either adult or child audiences, ICDL must serve a multilingual, multicultural, multigenerational audience. The research is presented as a case study for addressing these design criteria; current solutions and plans for future work are described.

This study focuses on the adoption and use of wireless technology by medium-sized academic libraries, based on responses from eighty-eight institutions. Results indicate that wireless networks are already available in many medium-sized academic libraries and that respondents from these institutions feel this technology is beneficial.

The MetaScholar Initiative of Emory University Libraries, in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the Atlanta History Center, and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, received an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to develop a new model for library-museum-archives collaboration. This collaboration will broaden access to resources for learning communities through the use of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). The project, titled Music of Social Change (MOSC), will use OAI-PMH as a tool to bridge the widely varying metadata standards and practices across museums, archives, and libraries. This paper will focus specifically on the unique advantages of the use of OAI-PMH to concurrently maximize the exposure of metadata emergent from varying metadata cultures.

Some considered 2000 the year of the e-book, and due to the dot-com bust, that could have been the format’s high-water mark. However, the first quarter of 2004 saw the greatest number of e-book purchases ever with more than $3 million in sales. A 2002 consumer survey found that 67 percent of respondents wanted to read e-books; 62 percent wanted access to e-books through a library. Unfortunately, the large amount of information written on e-books has begun to develop myths around their use, functionality, and cost. The author suggests that these myths may interfere with the role of libraries in helping to determine the future of the medium and access to it. Rather than fixate on the pros and cons of current versions of e-book technology, it is important for librarians to stay engaged and help clarify the role of digital documents in the modern library.

Multimedia will have a profound effect on libraries during the next decade. This rapidly developing technology permits the user to combine digital still images, video, animation, graphics, and audio. It can be delivered in a variety of finished formats, including streaming video on the Web, video on DVD/VCD, embedded digital objects within a Web page or presentation software such as PowerPoint, utilized within graphic designs, or printed as hardcopy. This article examines the elements of multimedia creation, as well as requirements and recommendations for implementing a multimedia facility in the library.