Emerging issues in library web collections

Abstract

The Internet’s growth has been extraordinary. According to the Internet Software Consortium the number of hosts has roughly quadrupled since the summer of 1998 (Internet Software Consortium, 2002). The number of networks and registered domains also increased (Caslon Analytics, 2003). About 180 of the world’s nations now have access to the Internet and, perhaps more significantly, the numbers of people online worldwide increased from just 16 million in December 1995 to over 600 million in October 2002 (Gromov, 2002; Web Metro, 2002). Over 765 million users are expected by the end of 2005 (CommerceNet, 2002).