The document discusses the evolution of digital libraries from their early conception in the 1940s by scientists like Vannevar Bush, to their development and growth in the 1990s with the rise of the internet. It outlines several important early digital library projects from 1991 onward, including arXiv and ETDs. It also describes two major digital library initiatives by the National Science Foundation in the 1990s that funded projects at several universities and helped advance digital library research and technologies.

1. TUMKUR UNIVERSITY
Department of studies and research in
library and information science
Tumkur University, Tumakuru
Evolution of Digital Libraries
By
Mahesh V M
Student
Department of studies and research in
library and information science
Tumkur University,Tumakuru

2. • The idea of digital library is not new.
• It has been conceived by many people in different ways.

3. • The digital library concept can be traced back to the famous papers of
forever scientist like Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider identifying to
goal of innovation technologies and approaches toward knowledge
gather, store, find and retrieve as fundamental instruments for
progress.

4. • The research and development activity on digital libraries started in
the early 1990s,
• With the internet proliferation and that internet has created
unprecedented possibilities to discover and deliver human knowledge.

5. • 1991 - This system originally named “e-print archive”.
• Now worldwide known as “arXiv”.
• “arXiv”, was born as an experimental means for making scientific
communication more effective and economic,
- a requirement mostly expressed by the physicists
community. (Ginsparg 1994)

6. • Besides arXiv “Electronic Thesis and dissertation repositories (ETDs) whose
pilot project started in 1996.
• Research paper is economics (RePEC) launched in 1997.
• In 2000 the Open Archives Initiative and then its software was converted to
the E prints Digital Repository software (E print).
-a flexible platform supporting easy and fast set up of repositories of Open
access research outputs.

7. DL initiatives:
• The growth and the popularity of the Internet and WWW resulted in
two major DL initiatives being taken in the mid 1990's in the USA.
• First was the joint initiative of the National Science Foundation (NSF),
Department of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA),
and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in
1994, to fund six digital library development projects for a period of
four years, among six academic institutions.

8. NSF-funded universities for DL research
• Carnegie Mellon University
• University of California-Berkeley
•University of Michigan
•University of Illinois
• University of California-Santa Barbara
• Stanford University

9. DLI-2
• In March 1997, NSF sponsored a workshop , held at Santa Fe.
• This workshop provided directions for Digital Library Initiative Phase 2.
• NSF announced DLI-2 in February 1998
Goals of DLI-2
• New DL research
• Technologies and applications to advance the use of distributed,
networked information of all types around the nation and the world.

10. • Sponsoring Institutions were:
– Library of Congress
– DARPA
– National Library of Medicine (NLM)
– NASA
– National Endowment for the Humanities
– National Archives
– Smithsonian Institute for Museum and Library Services

11. • Digital library are undergoing a continuously evolving process,
influencing all sectors where knowledge has to be created, stored,
transmitted and used.