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When Computers in Libraries editor Kathy Dempsey offered me the job of writing the Building Digital Libraries column, I had two immediate concerns. First, I'm a Web administrator and developer, but not a programmer. Second, I'm more interested in how people stumble around with new technology platforms than I am in new products. Attendees of the Internet Librarian and Internet Librarian International conferences have often heard me talk about "strategic thinking," whether the subject of my presentation was portals, hosting digital collections, or multi-disciplinary searching. When l joined the law offices of Epstein, Becket, Stromberg and Green in San Francisco, l discovered that the firm had not been charging its clients for online searching.The Institute of Industrial Relations Library needed to define high-quality content, and no one else was going to do it, so we did it ourselves. We could point to labor resources on the Internet; we could tell people how to find literature by topic, type, and location; and we could start publishing the faculty's research online. In fall 2002, a Google search on the string "labor research" listed our Center for Labor Research and Education first, and we were named an Internet Scout Site for library content.

Provides information on Bartleby.com, an online library. Advantages of Bartleby.com; Increase in number of people using the site; How the online library emerged.

Discusses the availability of audioclasts from particular sessions of the August 2002 Digital Reference Research Symposium of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). How the participants came from libraries, digital libraries, and the computer science field; Consideration of the opening comments made by R. David Lankes.

Concentrates on digital librarianship. Digital librarianship as a subset of traditional librarianship; Three components of digital librarianship including Digital collections, digital finding tools and the need for librarians to be able to create digital resources; The assertion that digital librarianship will become more important in the future.

This section introduces articles and topics discussed in the February 2005 issue of Computers in Libraries.

The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in partnership with nonprofit, industry, academic, and other government organizations, has announced a plan to build a digital library freely available for children worldwide. The library will consist of 10,000 children's books drawn from 100 cultures. The International Children's Digital Library, developed by the Internet Archive and the University of Maryland, is part of a larger research project to develop new technology to serve young readers.

Discusses how OverDrive Inc. announced the launch of Digital Library Reserve, an application service for libraries to develop and manage a circulating collection of electronic books, magazines, newspapers, journals, audiobooks, and other downloadable media. How the Digital Library Reserve consists of a series of Web services for the library to establish and manage its digital media collection; Relationship between OverDrive and Adobe Systems; Advantages of library support and lending models.