The Ultimate Digital Library: Where the New Information Players Meet

A virtual revolution has enthralled libraries since 1993. This revolution has been both liberating and exciting for librarians and end users alike. However, like most revolutions, it has simultaneously elicited a sense of dread and disorientation amongst the LIS community as long established service paradigms and library precepts are gradually supplanted by the new revolutionary order. Indeed, the Web constitutes such an insurmountable challenge to the supremacy of ‘librarians as the custodians of information’ that some have remained in a perpetual state of denial since the advent of the Web. This sense of dread is, in many cases, not entirely unfounded. Not only does the Web draw into sharp focus exciting issues pertaining to the management, storage, organisation and retrieval of information, but it has facilitated and provided a vehicle for the seemingly unstoppable march of gargantuan commercial organisations with, allegedly, dishonourable motives. The purpose of Pace’s book, therefore, is to unveil the rampant schizophrenia impeding some libraries from innovating, providing superior services and, above all, remaining competitive.