Progress Toward Digital Libraries: Augmentation through Integration

This special issue presents a collection of papers that illustrate the diversity of problems that digital library research addresses and suggests that an integrated view is necessary to deal with the challenges of change. Digital libraries are moving into a second phase in their speedy evolution. The nine papers in this issue serve as a recap of some of the best work in the first phase of growth and provide a glimpse of what accomplishment is likely in the future. Understanding the use of digital libraries, even to a small degree, is crucial for moving to better treatment of user needs. Understanding the potential of new technologies and exploring how these can lead to new services also helps us move forward to extend the envelope of digital library capabilities. Progress is marked by avances along each of these dimensions-pushing the envelope on communication, technology, services and content-work exemplified by the papers in this issue.