Publications > Digital Libraries

Research on design, development, and use of digital libraries, online catalogs, and other forms of information retrieval systems is listed here.  The term “digital libraries” has been in use since the early 1990s.  Prior research on other types of information systems addresses similar issues.  This section includes technical research and user studies that make specific design recommendations.  Research primarily about user behavior is included in the section on Information Seeking.

Levien, R., Austein, S. R., Borgman, C. L., Casey, T., Dubberly, H., Faltstrom, P., Halvorsen, P.-K., Jenkins, M., Klensin, J. C., Mueller, M. L., Nelson, S., Partridge, C., Raduchel, W. & Varian, H. R. (2005). Signposts in Cyberspace:  The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. [link]

D'Avolio, L., Borgman, C. L., Champeny, L., Leazer, G. H., Gilliland-Swetland, A. J. & Millwood, K. A. (2005). From Prototype to Deployable System: Framing the Adoption of Digital Library Services. Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, Charlotte, NC, Charlotte, NC.

Borgman, C.L., & Rasmussen, E. (2005). Usability of Digital Libraries in a Multicultural Environment. In Y.-L. Theng and S. Foo (Eds.), Design and Usability of Digital Libraries: Case Studies in the Asia Pacific. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, pp. 270-284.

Champeny, L.; Borgman, C. L.; Leazer, G. H; Gilliland-Swetland, A. J.; Millwood, K.; D’Avolio, L.; Finley, J. R.; Smart, L. J. (2004). Developing a Digital Learning Environment: An Evaluation of Design and Implementation Processes. Proceedings of the Fourth ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Global Reach and Diverse Impact, Tucson, Arizona, June 7-11, 2004.

Borgman, C.L., Smart, L. J.; Millwood, K.; Finley, J.; Champeny, L.; Gilliland-Swetland, A. J.; & Leazer, G. H. (2004). Getting ready for class: The information seeking behavior of geography professors in support of teaching. Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association. San Diego, CA: American Educational Research Association.

Borgman, C. L.; Leazer, G. H.; Gilliland-Swetland, A. J.; Millwood, K.; Champeny, L.; Finley, J.; Smart, L. J. (2004). How Geography Professors Select Materials for Classroom Lectures: Implications for the Design of Digital Libraries. Proceedings of the Fourth ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Global Reach and Diverse Impact, Tucson, Arizona, June 7-11, 2004.

Borgman, C. L. (2004). The Interaction of Community and Individual Practices in the Design of a Digital Library. International Symposium on Digital Libraries and Knowledge Communities in Networked Information Society, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan., University of Tsukuba. [link]

Borgman, C. L. (2003). Designing digital libraries for usability. In Bishop, A.P.; Van House, N.: & Buttenfield, B.P. (Eds.), Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 85-118.

Borgman, C.L.; & Larsen, R. (2003). ECDL 2003 Workshop Report: Digital Library Evaluation - Metrics, Testbeds and Processes. D-Lib Magazine, 9(9). [link]

Gazan, R.; Leazer, G.H.; Borgman, C.L.; Gilliland-Swetland, A.J.; Smart, L.J.; Ancona, D.; Nilsson, R.M. (2003). Use Scenarios in the Development of the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT). Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California, October 20 - 23, 2003.

Borgman, C.L. (2003). Personal digital libraries: Creating individual spaces for innovation. Working paper for NSF Workshop on Post-Digital Libraries Initiative Directions, Chatham, MA, June, 2003. [link]

Borgman, C.L. (2002). Challenges for Academic Libraries in the Networked World. Proceedings of The Second Slovene Conference of Academic Libraries Development Of Academic Libraries For The University Of The 21st Century. Ljubljana, Slovenia, May 28 - 29, 2002.

Caplan, C.; Barnett, B.; Bishoff, L.; Borgman, C.; Hamma, K.; & Lynch, C. (2003).
Report of the IMLS Workshop on Opportunities for Applied Research on the Creation, Management, Preservation and Use of Digital Content, March 16-18, 2003, in Washington, DC. Report submitted to the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Borgman, C.L. (2002). Challenges in Building Digital Libraries for the 21st Century. In: Lim, E-P.; Foo, S.; & Khoo, C. (eds.). (2002). Digital Libraries: People, Knowledge & Technology: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2002), Singapore. December 12-14, 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Pp. 1-13. [link]

Borgman, C.L. (2002). E-learning, Digital Libraries, and the Role of Academic Libraries in the 21st Century. APEC Workshop on e-Learning and Digital Archives, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 16-20 December 2002, pp. 33-37. [link]

Borgman, C.L. (2002). Evaluating Digital Libraries for Usability. International Conference of Digital Libraries, Beijing, China. Proceedings, Tutorials and panels volume, pp. 365-386. [link]

Borgman, C.L. (2002). Final report to the National Science Foundation. Fourth DELOS Workshop. Evaluation of Digital Libraries: Testbeds, Measurements, and Metrics. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Computer and Automation Research Institute (MTA SZTAKI), Budapest, Hungary, 6-7 June 2002. Grant IIS-0225626. [link]

Borgman, C.L. (2001). A premissa e a promessa de uma infra-estrutural global da informação. Revista de Bilbioteconomia de Bras?ia, 25(1), 91-126. Portuguese translation of The premise and promise of the Global Information Infrastructure (Chapter 1 of From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure, published as a journal article).

Borgman, C.L. (2001). Digital Libraries and Virtual Universities. In T. Della Senta & T. Tschang, (eds.). Access to Knowledge: New Information Technologies and the Emergence of the Virtual University. Paris: International Association of Universities Press, and Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 207-240.

Borgman, C.L. (2001). Digital libraries, virtual universities, and undergraduate education. Proceedings of INFO-21, Information Environment and International Cooperation for the 21st Century, Realizing a Global Information Society. March 6-8, 2000, Tokyo. Tokyo, Japan: The United Nations University. Pp 114-128.

Borgman, C.L. Leazer, G.H., Gilliland-Swetland, A.J., & Gazan, R. (2001). Iterative Design and Evaluation of a Geographic Digital Library for University Students: A Case Study of the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT). In P. Constantopoulos and I.T. S?vberg (eds.): Proceedings of the European Conference on Digital Libraries, Darmstadt, Germany, 5-7 September, 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2163, Springer-Verlag.

Borgman, C.L. & Hessel, H. (October, 2001). Report on the First Joint Conference on Digital Libraries. D-Lib Magazine, 7(10). [link]

Borgman, C.L. (1999). What are digital libraries? Competing visions. Information Processing & Management, 38(3), 227-243. In G. Marchionini & E. Fox (eds.), Special Issue: Progress Toward Digital Libraries.

Borgman, C.L. (2001). Where is the librarian in the digital library? Communications of the ACM, 44(5), 66-67. Special issue on digital libraries. [pdf]

Borgman, C. L. (2000). From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Borgman, C.L., Gilliland-Swetland, A.J., Leazer, G.L., Mayer, R.; Gwynn, D.; Gazan, R.; & Mautone, P. (2000). Evaluating digital libraries for teaching and learning in undergraduate education: a case study of the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT). Library Trends, Special Issue on Assessing and Evaluating Digital Library Services, 49(2), 228-250. [pdf]

Leazer, G.L., Gilliland-Swetland, A.J., Borgman, C.L., & Mayer, R. (2000). Classroom Evaluation of the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT). In D.H. Kraft (ed.), Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science Annual Meeting, 37, November 12-16, 2000, Chicago. Medford, NJ: Information Today. Pp. 334-340.

Leazer, G.L., Gilliland-Swetland, A.J., Borgman, C.L. (2000). Evaluating the use of a geographic fdigital library in undergraduate classrooms: the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT). Proceedings of the Fifth ACM Conference on Digital Libraries, San Antonio, Texas, June 2-7, 2000. (pp. 248-249). New York: Association for Computing Machinery.

Borgman, C. L. (2000). From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Best Information Science Book of the Year Award, American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2001. Translations: Chinese, Croatian, Lithuanian. Issued in paperback,2003

Caidi, N. & Borgman, C.L. (2000). The information infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe: A case study of the library community. Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Borgman, C.L. (2000). The premise and promise of the Global Information Infrastructure (Chapter 1 of From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure, published as a journal article). First Monday: Peer reviewed journal on the Internet, 5(8). [link]

Borgman, C.L. (1999). Robert R. Korfhage, A Personal Remembrance from the 1970s. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(4), 289-290.

Borgman, C.L. (1999). What are digital libraries, who is building them, and why? In Aparac, T.; Saracevic, T.; Ingwersen, P.; & Vakkari, P. (Eds). Digital Libraries: Interdisciplinary Concepts, Challenges, and Opportunities. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science. Dubrovnik, Croatia, May 23-26, 1999. Pp. 23-38. Zagreb: Lokve.

Borgman, C.L. (1998). Social aspects of digital libraries: making information technology usable and useful. In J. Yen and H. Chen (eds.), First Asian Digital Libraries Workshop, Hong Kong, 5-7 August 1998.

Borgman, C.L. (1997). From acting locally to thinking globally: A brief history of library automation. Library Quarterly, 67(3), 215-249. Also appeared in (1997), Library World, Journal of the Belarusian Library Association, 3(4), 10-14 and 3(5), 8-17, translated into Russian by Petr Lapo.

Borgman, C.L. (June, 1997). Multi-Media, Multi-Cultural, And Multi-Lingual Digital Libraries, Or How Do We Exchange Data In 400 Languages? D-Lib Magazine, 3(6). [link]

Borgman, C.L. (1997). Now that we have digital collections, why do we need libraries? In C. Schwartz & M. Rorvig (eds.), Digital Collections: Implications for Users, Funders, Developers, and Maintainers; Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science Annual Meeting, 34, November 1-6, 1997, Washington, D.C. Medford, NJ: Information Today. pp. 27-33.

Borgman, C.L. (January, 1997). Workshop report: Social Aspects Of Digital Libraries. D-Lib Magazine, 3(1). [link]

Borgman, C.L.; Bates, M.J.; Cloonan, M.V.; Efthimiadis, E.N.; Gilliland-Swetland, A.; Kafai, Y.; Leazer, G.L.; Maddox, A. (1996). Social Aspects Of Digital Libraries. Final Report to the National Science Foundation; Computer, Information Science, and Engineering Directorate; Division of Information, Robotics, and Intelligent Systems; Information Technology and Organizations Program. Award number 95-28808. [link]

Borgman, C.L.; Bates, M.J.; Cloonan, M.V.; Efthimiadis, E.N.; Gilliland-Swetland, A.; Kafai, Y.; Leazer, G.L.; Maddox, A. (1995). Social Aspects Of Digital Libraries. Background Paper for UCLA - National Science Foundation Workshop.

Borgman, C.L. (1995). The Global Information Infrastructure As A Digital Library. The Network Observer. Agre, P. (ed.), University of California, San Diego, Department of Communication. Invited paper based on talk presented at the Conference on Society and the Future of Computing, Durango, Colorado, June, 1995. Electronic publication.

Borgman, C.L. (1993). Report on NSF Workshop on Digital Libraries, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), December 9-10, 1992. In E. Fox, (ed.), Sourcebook on Digital Libraries: Report for the National Science Foundation, TR-93-35, VPI&SU Computer Science Department, December, 1993, Blacksburg, VA, 439 pages. Available by anonymous FTP from directory pub/DigitalLibrary on fox.cs.vt.edu or at [link].

Rosenberg, J. B., & Borgman, C. L. (1991). A report on the loading of MARC format bibliographic records into Hypercard. Information Technology and Libraries, 10(4), 292-297

Borgman, C. L., & Kaske, N. K. (1981). Determining the number of terminals required for an on-line catalog through queuing analysis of catalog traffic data. In J.L. Divilbiss, (Ed.), Public Access to Library Automation (pp. 20-36). Urbana-Champaign: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois.

Borgman, C. L. (1978). The role of technology for the Dallas Public Library in long range planning. Educational Resources Information Center, September, 1978. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 153 698.