ABSTRACT
Summary. If libraries are going to play the information game tomorrow, they must position themselves today and take the necessary steps now to become virtual libraries. To move beyond today’s electronic libraries to tomorrow’s networked virtual ones, libraries will need to extend well beyond their institutional boundaries. We are witnessing the emergence of a new industry in America: the knowledge industry. It involves communications, computers, software, database developers, publishers, and libraries. Libraries will play a pivotal role in the knowledge industry by developing special information packages and by providing direct access to many different print and non- print formats, bibliographic indexes and abstracts, CD-ROM systems, document delivery, full-text-electronic journals, images, and multimedia products. Libraries will offer customized services that seamlessly bring the world of information to users through the Internet, super networks, and wireless communications. Besides personnel and technological reconfiguration, new strategic partnerships with other libraries, commercial enterprises, software suppliers, publishers, campus computer centers, and user communities of educators and researchers will position libraries to become the high profile knowledge management centers of the future. Descriptions of a virtual medical library illustrate progress some libraries have made in these new directions.
