La Biblioteca Digitale dell’Università di Padova. Un sistema di componenti, contenuti e servizi

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to provide a genuine record of the development of the services offered by the Digital Library of Padova University from its beginnings in the early 1990s to the end of 2018. We think that the development of our Digital Library can be representative of the situation of the Italian University Library Systems after the advent of the “digital revolution”. The first steps of the Padova University Digital Library have been in accordance with the understanding of the new information technologies as a vector to improve the services traditionally offered by Academic Libraries to their institutional users. Those first steps opened a new path and the digital resources have been continually growing ever since. As a consequence a completely new relationship between the library and its users has developed. The constant growth of the access to the library resources and their utilization are a result of the changes produced by the digital library services. The gradual implementation of the information flows permitted by new technologies has been received by users in a positive and effective way. Hence, libraries have become front line interpreters of the ongoing transformation in the transmission of knowledge. Librarians have been devoting their efforts to the analysis of the new technologies and the possibilities of applying them to the development of new services. At present, it is not possible to foresee how digital libraries will evolve. However, we know for sure that there will always be a focus on the users’ needs according to the new approaches to study and research.