Organization of Information in Digital Libraries:

Digital libraries are an extension, enhancement, and integration both of information retrieval systems and of multiple information institutions, libraries being only one. The scope of digital libraries’ capabilities includes not only information retrieval but also creating and using information (Borgman, 2000, p. 47). According to Borgman, digital libraries are for communities of users and that they are really extensions of the physical places where resources are selected, collected, organized, preserved, and accessed, including libraries, museums, archives, and schools (p. 47). Sun Microsystems (2002) shares the same idea as Borgman, a digital library as "the electronic extension of functions users typically perform and the resources they access in a traditional library" (p. 7).

The first digital libraries contributed to the digital library innovation because of the lack of availability of a standardized package. The University of California Berkley project is a a great example of what innovations have been made. Their project has become the building block of Encoded Archival Description (EAD). The project created specifications for encoding electronic finding aids for special collections and archives. Another project, the "Making of America II" project has evolved into the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS).

Cornell University's digitization program is another example of the digital library innovations. The digital library program is establishing a central repository for all these digitized resources with the aim of supporting the total lifecycle of those resources (Sun Microsystems, 2002, p.11).

"Infomine" is an example of a digital library created by cooperating librarians from several academic libraries, (Infomine, n.d., para. 1). Infomine is described as "a virtual library of Internet resources" with almost 170 librarians who create "expert created records," automatic and semiautomatic metadata generation of records retrieved by Web crawlers.