on the internet through a reliable
search engine. Library 2000 was a project run between 1995 and 1998 by
the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT: Massachusetts Institute
of Technology) to explore the implications of large scale online
storage, using the digital library of the future as an example. It
developed a prototype using the technology and system configurations
expected to be economically feasible in 2000. Another project was the
Digital Library Initiative, supported by grants from NSF (National
Science Foundation), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). As mentioned
on its website in 1998: "The Initiative's focus is to dramatically
advance the means to collect, store, and organize information in
digital forms, and make it available for searching, retrieval, and
processing via communication networks--all in user-friendly ways."

1997 > The digital library of the British Library

The British Library was a pioneer in Europe as soon as 1997. Brian
Lang, chief executive of the library, explained on its website: "We do
not envisage an exclusively digital library. We are aware that some
people feel that digital materials will predominate in libraries of the
future. Others anticipate that the impact will be slight. (...) The
development of the Digital Library will enable the British Library to
embrace the digital information age. Digital technology will be used to
preserve and extend the Library's unparalleled collection. Access to
the collection will become boundless with users from all over the
world, at any time, having simple, fast access to digitized materials
using computer networks, particularly the internet."

October 1997 > The digital library of the French National Library

The French National Library (BnF: Bibliotheque nationale de France)
launched its digital library Gallica in October 1997 as an experimental
project to offer digitized texts and images from print collections
relating to French history, life and culture, beginning with the 19th
century. It quickly became one of the largest digital libraries of the
internet. The books ranged from the Middle Ages to the early 20th
century, and were digitized as image files, for cost reasons. In
December 2006, the Gallica collection included 90,000 books and
periodicals, 80,000 images, and dozens of hours of sound files. Gallica
also began converting image files of books into text fil