Information technology and libraries: towards the simplification of tools?

The world of libraries has progressively been equipped with norms and standards; it has adopted information technology tools that permit information processing. But the solutions decided on have been for the most part specific to it. If they have assured consistency for it and permitted the development of exchanges of information within it, they have kept it in relative isolation. The emergence of information technology as carrier of primary data and the development of the Web have radically altered the situation. Since the 1990s there has been a documentary globalisation resulting in the construction of universal standards and everyday tools ; it is up to libraries to get firmly involved in this process and play a part in it.
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