Librarians as Info Architects: New Roles of Archivists and Reference Librarians in the Digital Environment

Abstract

Many Internet users believe that archival collections should and will be digitized and placed on the World Wide Web for all to use. This belief derives from several unrealistic ideas about what the Web can do, what archival collections are, and that technology, including processing, storage and display, is free. Attempts have been made by small and large libraries to meet expectations only to find that staff requirements, as well as financial and technological issues, present too many difficulties to overcome (Nelson, 1996). Archivists are now reevaluating the Web and the benefits it offers to their repositories.