What do you mean by Digital Library? Explain the characteristics features of a Digital Library.

      The Digital Library is a later stage of electronic library. When an electronic library started procuring E-journal and other similar kind of publications and access is over the Web,then it is termed as  "Digital Library".

      Digital library has been defined by a UCLANSF social aspects of digital libraries workshop as "Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching and using information".

       In digital library,high speed optical fibers are used for LAN and the access is over the WAN and it provides a wide range of internet based services i.e. audio and video conferencing  etc. the collection of a Digital library is in digital form and is usually served over the World Wide Web.

Characteristics of digital library:

     Cleveland (1998) describes some characteristics of digital libraries that have been gleaned from various discussion about digital libraries both online and in print:

(1). Digital libraries are the digital face of traditional libraries that include both digital collections and traditional,fixed media collections.So they encompass both electronic and paper materials.

(2). Digital libraries will also include digital materials that exist outside the physical and administrative bounds of any one digital library.

(3). Digital libraries provide a coherent view of all of the information contained within a library,no matter its form or format.

(4). They will serve particular communities or constituencies,as traditional libraries do now, though those communities may be widely dispersed throughout the network.

(5). Digital libraries will require both  the skills of librarians and as well as those of computer scientists to be viable.

(6). They include the process and services that are the backbone and nervous system of libraries.