A Snapshot of Digital Library Development: The Way Forward in the Asia Pacific

Abstract

This chapter highlights selective key issues and assesses the current situation of digital library development in the Asia Pacific under the broad categories of design architecture and systems, implementation issues and challenges, use and impact, and users and usability. Emphasis on cross-cultural and cross-lingual research would especially be beneficial to address the diversity and richness of the heritage, cultures and languages of this region. Nonetheless, a fundamental digital divide problem poses the greatest challenge as almost 70% of the population of the countries of Asia Pacific has little or no connectivity to the digital world. Concerted international collaborative efforts are much needed, not only to push ahead with the various aspects of the digital library research agenda and realize the global digital library vision of the future, but to derive novel solutions to eliminate or close the gap of digital divide across various parts of the world.