Æliens

Digital libraries are constructed -- collected and organized -- by a community of users. Their functional capabilities support the information needs and users of this community. Digital libraries are an extension, enhancement and integration of a variety of information institutions as physicalplaces where resources are selected, collected, organized, preserved and accessed in support of a user community.

... federated structures that provide humans both intellectual and physical access to the huge and growing worldwide networks of information encoded in multimedia digital formats.