Volume 8 Number 1
ISSN 1082-9873
Editorial
Serendipity
Serendipity is the "phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." I experienced an agreeable feeling of serendipity as this issue of D-Lib Magazine began to come together. Although roughly half of the articles that appear in D-Lib are invited articles, every one in this particular issue resulted from authors sending article proposals or unsolicited manuscripts.
Only rarely have issues of D-Lib Magazine focused on one theme, and it would be a stretch to say that this issue of D-Lib is a special, themed issue. However, the articles in this issue serendipitously do relate to each other, sharing the underlying theme of improved information access, arguably the primary benefit of digital libraries.
Another happy circumstance is that this group of articles is being published together in January, a month that seems tailor made for careful and attentive reading and reflection.
The first two articles focus on aspects of interoperability and how access to various kinds of digital content is affected by the level of interoperability that can be achieved now, and might be achieved in the future. The third article describes efforts by libraries and archives to preserve resources over which they have no control, but upon which they depend. Digital preservation is the topic of the fourth article, and the fifth provides the results of a study on digital object persistence and availability. The sixth article reports on a collaborative project in which an online database of digitized materials from museums and libraries was created to make the materials accessible to elementary school teachers in Illinois.
The articles, opinion piece and conference report in D-Lib's January 2002 issue represent the work of 26 authors from 3 continents. I hope that you will experience the same sense of serendipity I did as you read them.
Bonita Wilson
Managing Editor
Copyright © 2002 Corporation for National Research Initiatives
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DOI
: 10.1045/january2002-editorial
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