Early Experiments in Digital Libraries

The early experiments in digital libraries produced a sequence of long term research goals that we will be working to perfect for many more years.

The best way to view the overall research and development effort is in a layered structure of Internet interfaces to digitized books and the information contained within them.

To date we have many implementations worldwide of the first four layers of these interfaces, but interesting new research is needed on the last two layers.

In the terms of this talk, the goal is to reclaim the magic of old books, as Carl Sagan once described it, in the future of books on the Internet.