These four examples, at different stages of development and deployment, hint at the immense range of digital libraries. From the perspective of ordinary people, libraries often seem scholarly and esoteric. But they are not necessarily so.Practical topics are of interest to
practical people like Kataayi’s members.Academic libraries have as their purpose research
and education: high-energy physicists already base their research activity on electronic
document collections.Digital libraries offer unique ways of recording, preserving,and propagating culture in multimedia form. Collections that reflect popular taste in music
(or film,or TV)have already become mass-market consumer products,with delivery to
teenagers on miniature,mobile,Web-capable,pocket devices.