There are limits to our cognitive capacities and what we really need is information presented to us in the right format and in ways that make sense to us. But while they help us finding the information of today, the libraries throughout the world start loosing the information of yesterday. The information that is kept in o lder, precious special collections, collections that are too vulnerable, too valuable or too fragile to be available for the library users. If nothing is done to these collections they might fall apa rt, due to the environment they reside in, or simply fall into oblivion. They are the hidden treasures of the libraries and they might get a new lease of life with help of modern technology.
Multimedia is a rather new term.
According to The Oxford English Dictionary Multimedia is designating or pertaining to a form of artistic, educational and commercial communication in which more than one medium is used. It was first mentioned in Times on February 26, 1962. Today Multimedia relates to the computer world and means more or less the interaction of information between text, sound and images. In the human world we have mass media, which refer to the one way information we get through radio, TV and newspapers. Internet, the net that connects thousands and thousands of co mputers all over the world, can provide us with mass media information through a computer, thus combining the human and the computer worlds to a multimedia environment.