DIGITAL LIBRARIES - A QUALITY CONCEPT

The idea of digital libraries is not new; but recent developments have made the realisation of this idea more of a practical possibility tha n ever before. In particular, the availability of tools for easy acces s to information and for easy production of new information has encour aged traditional publishers to make their information available in dig ital networked form, but also made it possible for many individual aut hors to directly publish their own information on the Internet, bypass ing traditional publishers and established bibliographic systems. Mana ging these new information resources is the task of Internet digital l ibraries such as OMNI. A key issue is the need to signpost the quality of information sources. A variety of ways of doing this are possible. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.