INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION

How will digital information be integrated with materials represented in traditional resources, such as library catalogs, citations, and abstracts? As mentioned earlier in this article, many libraries have not yet cataloged all of their holdings at the title level. With a new world of digital information on the Internet, libraries are struggling with policies to determine how they will integrate these materials with older formats. For example, how does a user of a public library in Kyoto or in Washington, D.C. know that the Library of Congress offers THOMAS, an Internet resource of contemporary bills and acts of the U.S. Congress? The Internet cognoscenti claim, "people that use the WWW know how to find what they need with search engines. Cataloging is over." However, many "average" information seekers have only vague ideas of the resources on the WWW and how to go about finding them. It is for these users that the integration of descriptive information about digital materials into traditional means of information discovery is essential. This topic was addressed as early as 1994 at the Seminar on Cataloging Digital Documents held at University of Virginia and the Library of Congress (UVA and LC 1994). Follow-up meetings have continued to discuss these issues in the library community and have given rise to organizations such as the Digital Library Federation (LC 1995).