Access and preservation are seen as the two main ethical challenges of digital libraries. The question of preservation is briefly discussed. Libraries throughout the world are adding more and more remote electronic resources. This paper examines these questions and the international efforts to find answers to them. The primary focus is academic libraries.
Digital collections take information outside libraries' physical confines.
As managers of digital information systems, librarians cannot remain mere intermediaries. Librarians, however, must develop new roles and working practices and initiate the cultural changes that will alter others' perceptions of them. The potential of an electronic collection to underpin current pedagogic styles, initiate new teaching and learning practices and support lifelong learning skills through the close collaboration and inter-change of professional academic and librarian roles, is currently being explored through the expansion of the ResIDe Electronic Library at the University of the West of England, Bristol. We also discuss the relation between tasks, the information need, information seeking and retrieval process and information objects. The paper points out the importance of considering different levels and characteristics of tasks and their context for a better understanding of IR system and user interfaces design.