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Electronic Document Delivery

The digital future - realities and phantasy - a view from marketing / Mike McGrath [*]

This paper argues that the digital library is not inevitable. Indeed it is certain that libraries will be a mix of digital and paper for many years to come - and probably indefinitely.The degree to which the balance will shift from paper to digital depends on a number of factors: principally - infrastructure costs, legal constraints, publisher pricing, end user WWW publishing, end user attitudes, scale of knowledge generation, library budgets and technical innovation.

These factors are analysed and evaluated. The conclusion is that contrary to popular myth the transition to the digital future is slower than was predicted and is by no means inevitable. Thus librarians will be faced with managing multiple resources, both electronic and paper held both locally and remotely. End user expectations will change and become more demanding especially for speed and simplicity of access. Managing this mix will test librarians in new and challenging ways.