At no other time in history has the emergence of technology affected so significantly the core mission of a library. These technological advances have created new opportunities for libraries, information managers, researchers and library patrons of all kinds. The Internet is expanding at a dramatic rate and is creating a fundamental change in the way people collect information and acquire knowledge.
Researchers are everywhere.
The Web has more than 3.6 million sites and the average life of a website is 70 days. And teenagers and children constitute the fastest growing population of Internet users. With the emergence of Web help services, libraries are no longer the lone providers of information. Today's researchers need to find quickly information that is usable, relevant, authoritative and verifiable. To meet that need, libraries must adapt our traditional strengths of acquiring, describing, and serving information to an environment that is not bound by time or physical place, the virtual library without walls.