ABSTRACT
The digital library is in some ways the very embodiment of the ideal of global librarianship. The “library without walls,” the “virtual library”—however it is termed, this concept represents a vision of the library extending beyond the physical boundaries of its building and reaching out to the world at large. Access is the key to the digital library, the buzzword that has prompted many institutions to finance costly initiatives to convert their holdings to electronic form and make them available to the world. At a time when communications are improving globally to the extent that access at last becomes a reality to those in the developing world, the possibility of a truly global digital library is beginning to take shape. How close are we to this ideal?
