This paper is a study of the possible different repercussions that the transition to digital libraries would have in all aspects of printed knowledge as we know it.

The concept of digital libraries simply means the replacement of large archives of information printed on "good old paper" (GOP) by its storage in a widespread network of digital devices. This medium linking remote storage devices, which Wiederhold refers to, is today commonly know as the worldwide web.

In order to understand the consequences that such a conversion would have, the paper first analyzes the basic differences between digital libraries and GOP libraries. Three of these differences, the author states, are: 1) the storage medium, 2) the means to access information, and 3) the availability of the original/master version of the document to be retrieved.

The transition from paper to digital has repercussions not only in the more obvious physical aspects, but also in characteristics taken for granted in the traditional medium. Aspects like effectiveness of a specific format may not carry over into the digital realm. On the other hand, digital storage broadens the possibilities for types of information that may be represented as well as the ways in which information may be represented. Digital storage enables documents to embed many objects that are today referred to as "multimedia" objects, as well as the ability to link documents together to gain more dynamic documents.

Furthermore, due to the innate characteristics of the medium, the end user may now access these documents directly from any computer terminal instead of having to travel to the physical building where all the information is collected (i.e. libraries.) Also, the user may now access the master version of document directly, bypassing may of the intermediate procedures now encompassed throughout the publishing and printing process.

After this preliminary analysis, the authors proceed to survey the services that may be lost, changed, and added.

Having information stored digitally means the loss of many services directly linked with the paper medium, or with the way it is stored and accessed. From the publishing point of view, many of the services related to dealing with an author and his or her work may be lost due to the author’s ability to make documents available online without the use of a formal publisher. In such cases, this would also entail the loss of editing services, the consequences of which would be the lack of a cohesive vocabulary across the same discipline, as well as proof of any degree of reliance of the works value and accuracy. It thus follows how other services offered by critics, librarians, booksellers, and others would also become rare, if not extinct.

It is easy to see how any service related with a work being printed and published, which is usually detached from the body of work itself, may be easily avoided. In addition, anyone or anything involved with the process of acquiring such information would also lose contact with the end user due to his/her ability to directly access the information. The social repercussions that this may bring may best be studied by sociology, and though not directly related to the information value itself, may take something away from society.

Meanwhile, some services would undergo changes in order to adapt to the new environment. As the author points out, such a service is cataloging. Cataloging, which through the course of time has evolved from a primitive card index to the extensive Library of Congress catalog, will now be itself stored and available digitally. The complicated process of cataloging a newly obtained book at a local library would become as simple as downloading the corresponding information from the online Library of Congress database.

Meanwhile, editing, which in many cases can be ignored as pointed out previously, may become a service offered remotely by freelancers. People offering such services, would use new innovative techniques to clearly demarcate the work done by them versus the original work done by the author; as well as using digital signatures (encryption) to verify that a document had been in fact revised by such a professional.

The idea of a document being edited, published, refereed, and even distributed would adapt to new concepts in the digital medium. All new kinds of evolving methods such as encryption mechanisms, electronic monetary exchanges, new laws of electronic copyrights and authorship, would be given birth and widespread use.

One area that would encourage such new evolution, thus worthy of much study, is the indexing of documents. This area brings forth the need for technology to not only be able to handle large amounts of information, but also to make sense of them. For instance, there may be a need for a "smart" system able to coalesce distinct terminology, topics, and vocabulary into a consistent index.

Technology and the digital medium will in fact impose their way into all services related with information storage, services which will adapt to serve the new environment in an effective and efficient manner. Evolution will take its toll on this aspect of library science.

With a new medium to serve, services would not only have to adapt or face being lost, but new services would arise. Such emerging services would require technologies such as cryptography for online revenue collection, artificial intelligence for image search and retrieval, expert systems for book abstraction, etc. Furthermore new overall concepts will sprout, such as dynamic books in publishing.

Many of these new technologies and ideas may be already seen in their birth stage across universities and company research projects. However, it is impossible to foresee what will in fact succeed, and what would fail and be put aside as pipe dreams.

However, these advances do entail that information and technology would be an even stronger vehicle for dissemination of information. News, secure data, advertisements, and even fluff data such as home pages and bulk electronic mail will find its way into people’s homes. This overexposure to information, not all of it reliable or of value, will mean a new attitude towards the approach to libraries. People will go online to sample the newest and most advanced technology available in data management and retrieval, and at the same time be exposed to more trash than they could have ever imagined.

So what to expect of this new world? How will all this information be made coherent? The author states that fluctuating standards on this age of digital information may not be avoided. Though governments may try to control the way information is presented and distributed, it will be the dynamic medium that dictates its own standards.

So what will be available online? Whole established systems of operations would have to adapt or perish. Publishing firms will have to confront the fact that it is much easier to make a document available on line that to go through the trouble of fighting with agents, editors, publishers, lawyers, and decision makers. It is ultimately reliable establishments, such as publishers, who will be the ones that may discriminate for the average end user, the difference between recognized science and written fiction.

Who will thrive? Advertisement companies will take advantage of a new medium in which currency may be as easily exchanged as information can. And with faster and more readily available sources of information there may no longer any difference between Harvard’s library, and Tarrant County Community College in Waco Texas. Except for the stuffy campus that is.