Library in the digital age: experiences and challenges from the university of Bergen library, Norway

Abstract

At the University of Bergen Library (UBL) the digital library has been developed over a period of 25 years. It started slowly, but during the last decade the changes have been more and more rapid, entailing major alterations of the routines and services. There has also been a revolution in the amount of available digitalized information. I will look briefly at some of the changes and challenges that the University of Bergen Library has been facing during the last 10 - 15 years. The changes regarding a digital library are basically of a technological nature, but they have led to major alterations to all the main library processes. We talk about cultural changes. Consequently the situation has changed radically, both for the library users and for the library staff. Implementing the digital library has entailed both technological and cultural changes. This means that the library, and consequently also the library staff, has had to change its attitude and way of thinking and working to match user demand and to integrate library and information litracy in the education community.. A digital library is very complex and consists of many different things; from the OPAC as well as digital resources (catalogues, books, journals). In my presentation I also would like to emphasize the utility of a consortium for acquisition of electronic resources, and tell you a little about the work with institutional repositories that we have done in Norway. In the book “Aspects of the Digital Library”, co-edited by your own Angela Repanovici, and myself and Ane Landoy from UBL, this is explored more fully.