Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching, and using information. They are a component of communities in which individuals and groups interact with each other, using data, information, and knowledge resources and systems. In this sense they are an extension, enhancement, and integration of a variety of information institutions as physical places where resources are selected, collected, organized, preserved, and accessed in support of a user community. These information institutions include, among others, libraries, museums, archives, and schools, but digital libraries also extend and serve other community settings, including classrooms, offices, laboratories, homes, and public spaces. This organization of information is characterized by the absence of prior detailed knowledge of the uses of the information.
Digital library is a concept that has different meanings in different communities.
To the engineering and computer science community, digital library is a metaphor for the new kinds of distributed data base services that manage unstructured multimedia data. To the political and business communities, the term represents a new marketplace for the world's information resources and services. To futurist communities, digital libraries represent the manifestation of Wells' World Brain. The perspective taken here is rooted in an information science tradition. A digital library is a machine readable representation of materials which might be found in a university library together with organizing information intended to help users find specific information.