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Report to the President on Digital Libraries: Universal Access to Human
Knowledge, February 9, 2001
Transmittal Letter to the President
President's Information Technology Advisory Committee
February 9, 2001
Co-Chairs:
Raj Reddy
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Members:
Eric A. Benhamou
Vinton Cerf
Ching-chih ChenDavid Cooper
Steven D. Dorfman
David Dorman
Robert Ewald
Sherrilynne S. Fuller
Hector Garcia-Molina
Susan L. Graham
James N. Gray
W. Daniel Hillis
Robert E. Kahn
Ken Kennedy
John P. Miller
David C. Nagel
Edward H. Shortliffe
Larry Smarr
Joe F. Thompson
Leslie Vadasz
Steven J. Wallach

The Honorable George W. BushPresident of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
Given the high priority focus of your new Administration on the importance ofeducation and educational technology funding to strengthen us as a Nation, webelieve that you will find the enclosed report on digital libraries of special interest.
Over the past year, the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee(PITAC) has focused much of its attention on providing a vision for information
technology's role in driving progress in the 21st century, particularly progress ineducation and human development for all citizens. One of two PITAC panels
focusing on educational issues examined the status of digital libraries -- thenetworked collections of digital text, documents, images, sounds, scientific data,and software that are the core of today's Internet and tomorrow's universally
accessible digital repositories of all human knowledge. We are especially pleased toforward to you this report, Digital Libraries: Universal Access to Human
Knowledge, because of the profound relevance of this technology to advancing
quality education in every school, learning center, and home in the country.
Realizing the full potential of digital libraries will take strong leadership and asteady commitment of resources to tackle the substantial technical and policy
barriers that inhibit our rapid progress toward universally accessible knowledge
libraries. The PITAC offers four key recommendations that will make digital
libraries more pervasive and usable by all citizens:Expand research in new systems for organizing online content, andaddress issues related to system scalability, interoperability, archival
storage and preservation, intellectual property rights, privacy andsecurity, and human use;
Create several Federally funded large-scale digital library testbeds;
Provide Federal funding to make all public Federal content
persistently available in digital form on the Internet; andHave the Federal government play a leadership role in evolving
policy to fairly address intellectual property rights in the digital age.

The PITAC strongly urges the Federal government to continue its leadership role in
the research and development efforts needed to extend the capabilities of digital
libraries. We believe that the recommendations in our report can help move theNation toward realizing the enormously powerful vision of anytime, anywhere
access to the best of human thought and culture, so that no classroom or individual
is isolated from knowledge resources. Digital libraries can and should be an
essential resource for human learning and development in the new century.
We look forward to working with you, your Administration, and members ofCongress to dramatically improve our education system through the use ofinformation technology. As PITAC strives to provide sound, well-researchedadvice, we hope that you and members of your Administration will feel free at anytime to discuss these and other important issues with the Committee.
Sincerely,
Raj Reddy, Ph.D.
PITAC, Co-Chair

Enclosure

Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Ph.D.
PITAC, Co-Chair