However, new information technologies are changing the means of scholarly communication. The increasing use of national and international networks, electronic mail, electronic lists or discussion groups, and electronic journals is changing the entire scholarly publication system. The means of identifying and locating needed information are also changing. The increasing access to networked, digital databases has greatly enhanced researchers' ability to identify and locate needed information. Effective and cost-efficient systems to deliver the identified documents or information to the user are still in various stages of development.
Libraries stand poised on the edge of a new age of information technology.
This new age holds significant opportunities and challenges for both higher education and for academic libraries. Our challenge as scholars, educators, and information professionals is to identify rational and affordable means to convert the grand promises of information technology into improved and enhanced scholarship and teaching. While few would choose to return to the less efficient and more time-consuming research strategies of the past, all of us should be wary of the oversimplification and media hype which has raised high expectations about the cost, ease, and rate at which information technology will become widely available. There are many, many challenges awaiting everyone in the still new and ever-changing information environment. New information technologies will offer libraries and individual users more power and flexibility in accessing the expanding universe of information.