Some of the impetus for me to write this has come from my discovery of these sites
World Digital Library http://www.wdl.org
International children's digital Library http://en.childrenslibrary.org/
This excellent library is a modern marvel as not only is the library completely digital but it also encompasses works from around the world. They have actually scanned it books to make them more readable, and the pages are not certainly not like Microsoft Word documents, which I find hard to read large amount of text. One of the great things about this library is that when they created the library, they consulted heavily with children to determine what they would like to see in the library. Moreover they gained advice about how the library should work and even how the books are catalogued. For example children can read books that have different coloured covers, or book are split up into short, medium or long works.
World Cat http://www.worldcat.org/
This is an exciting website that is a catalogue that enables the user to be able to search for items all around the world. All you have to do is enter the country or area that you are and the item and you can find what you're looking for. This service would be excellent if you were staying in an overseas country for a long time and you could find library resources there that you might like to borrow/use.
International Youth Library (physical library) http://www.ijb.de/files/Page00.htm
This international Library is quite special as it celebrates it's 60th anniversary this month. The library is certainly unique as it has over 550,000 books in over 130 languages and all the literature is for children and youth. And yes they do have Australian authors of course!
The Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/
Note: With the Internet Public Library, they are currently undergoing a merger with the Librarians Internet Index, and they will be deciding on a new name soon. Both these sites are excellent and have amazing resources and they do seem to have similar features which must have resulted in the merger. What these resources provide is Internet resources and sites that are organised by subject just like a non-fiction collection would be organised by subject under the Dewey Decimal system. They even have a list of podcast links that have been organised by subject.
These sites are and contain fabulous resources and they herald the way that libraries are moving. It goes without saying that the Internet has brought the world closer together, but libraries and library users are also being brought closer together. The development of these resources also have significant repercussions for the library and information management profession. In the past most of a library's material was in physical form and the library's clients were people from the local area. Now with some of these libraries above, the whole collections are online digitally and the library patrons can be accessed from anywhere that there is an Internet connection. There are new types of librarian positions being created in the job market such as virtual librarians, web librarians and emerging technology librarians. While technology and computer librarian positions have existed for a while, their roles will change and morph as the Internet changes but also as library clients change to become much more reliant on digital media.
