Policymakers and library administrators are being drawn to the idea of the "virtual library" and the "library without walls," the webs of electronic resources that supposedly will displace books, physical libraries, and most library staff, and are believing the virtual library to be imminent, adequate, and cost-effective. This…

This membership meeting of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) focused on the impact of the new information technologies on scholarly exchange. The program was organized into two sessions comprising 11 papers in all. In the first session, three influential leaders presented papers exploring different aspects of the conference topic. In the…