February 6, 2008

Strategies for Sustaining Digital Libraries

This collection of essays on sustaining digital libraries is a report of early findings from pioneers who have worked to establish digital libraries, not merely as experimental projects, but as ongoing services and collections that are intended to be sustained over time in ways consistent with the long-held practices of print-based libraries. Particularly during this period of extreme technological transition, it is imperative that programs across the nation – and indeed the world – actively share their innovations, experiences, and techniques in order to begin cultivating new standard practices. The collective sentiment of the field is that we must begin to transition from a punctuated, project-based mode of advancing innovative information services to an ongoing programmatic mode of sustaining digital libraries for the long haul.