Information, Information Technology, and the Future of Digital
Libraries: The Role of Organized Research in Innovation
ŠT—v
Technology innovation is the springboard for economic development in a
modern society. In the area of information technology over the last
30 years , it is well recognized that many innovations have
contributed to the economic b enefits of the society: from timesharing
of early days, graphical user interface s, the Internet, RISC
processors, relational databases, World Wide Web, to the p resent-day
digital libraries. Less well known is the fact that each of these in
novations has gone through an extended period of funded research that
draws vari ous human, physical, and organizational resources into
play, by accident or desi gn, leading to the end result. Meantime, as
the information society faces new c hallenges, both technical and
social, we need to develop a fresh research agenda in order to sustain
the innovation process. In this talk, wefll examine this process in
search of a successful model for organized research. The experiences
of digital libraries and related work in the past 10 years will be
used as a case study.