REPORT OUTLINE

This final report follows much the same plan as the workshop, but benefits from peer reviews of preliminary results. Chapter 2 presents Raj Reddy's vision of the digital library of the future, the kind of inspiration shared by many in Japan who are working to make this dream a reality. Jerry Mendel brings us back to earth with a description of digital libraries as they exist today, particularly for education applications (Chapter 3). Tryg Ager lays out the hardware and software architectures that provide the framework for the development efforts in Japan (Chapter 4). Bruce Croft and Rama Chellapa review the way the Japanese deal with text and image data (Chapters 5 and 6). Beth Davis-Brown covers the central issue of access, metadata, in Chapter 7. In the concluding Chapter 8, Michael Shamos presents the economic and intellectual property aspects of information access in Japan, and policy-what governments can do to provide the library of the future. Appendices A and B contain the vitas of the panelists and other team members, respectively, and Appendix C has the detailed trip reports from the 18 Japanese sites studied.

Published: February 1999; WTEC Hyper-Librarian