The virtual library or from Ars Memoria to Xanadu

Digitalization does not only mean copying and storing on magneto-optic supports. It of course allows new scales of storing and transmitting, with high-speed access and unlimited possibilities of data processing. This implies new approach to memorizing in finding new organizational methods, as the Renaissance men had to with the invention of the printing press. Encyclopedism, at the end of the 20th century, needs a new approach to electronic document repository structures, to reading, but above all, needs an improved technique of retrieval, navigation, and mapping of the data. Right now, there is a need for redefining the status of all the actors such as publishers and users. These are the conditions for open and safe networks, which are consequently at stake for the future virtual libraries status.
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