Neither of the de®nitions arising from the research or practice communities deals explicitly
with the plethora of databases that exist on the Internet, the World-Wide Web, on CD-ROMs
and on proprietary services such as Dialog, Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw, STN, InfoAmerica and
CDB Infotek. Some of these databases and web sites identify themselves as digital libraries,
whether for reasons of scholarship, for convenience as a recognizable term or as a marketing
ploy. In other cases, surveys of digital libraries include web-based, CD-ROM and other
databases within their scope.