The power of technology has not only allowed libraries to share resources more easily and less expensively, it has also allowed the library to bring more information and more up to date information to its users. Access to electronic information is highly dependent on access to computers and to networks. The lack of data conversion usually can be traced to a perception of the actual value of information in the marketplace. From much of the knowledge thus far collected, organized and preserved in libraries, this added value will simply be impossible to define. The second category, new digital data, is more complex.
Commercial considerations are very real, intricate and heterogeneous.
Also, the market for electronic publications is by far not as developed as the one for print publications, dissemination mechnanism and pricing, for instance, still require lots of attention. In some cases, the lack of the means to use electronic formats will further reduce the number of potential users and customers for digital information. Simply put, it just doesn't pay to digitize information that only few people want, and even fewer can use. Before the current era of digitized and digital information, librarians addressed the need for dissemination of information by persuading publishers and authors to create books using the forces of demand and supply. Publishers helped librarians by reprinting out of print books and by encouraging authors to create books on certain topics.