Presented are the impressions of the Digital Reference Pre-Conference held in conjunction with the 2002 American Library Association annual conference in Atlanta. Over the last years, the online reference service has established itself in the American libraries, and has now slowly been trying to find its way into Europe.
Libraries have gone throughout many changes in history; nowadays, with names like Gates and Joy, they find themselves at a similiar turning point as once personified by Gutenberg. EU is aware of the depth of the metamorphosis taking place and supports it with different political documents, such as the Guidelines on Library Related Legislation and Policy which are dealt with in detail in this article.
Studying the information behaviour, to which also user studies belong, represents the most fertile point of contact between information science and sociology, psychology and education science. According to their purpose user studies belong to the information science, according to their methods (questionnaire, interview, focus group) they belong to the named older social sciences.
Despite having published numerous works as information scientist in the English language between 1958 and 1980, and literature on him too, so that there is no languge barrier, today, Božo Težak is only locally known as the founder of the information science (informatology) in Croatia.
Back in the nineteen sixties, Božo Težak already did much for taking a clinical approach as one of the conditions required for professional functioning and performance of library and information education.
A clear conception of what is digital library does not exist as yet. Different communities discuss digital libraries in terms of different perspectives, conceptions, models, and approaches.
Until electronic publishing appeared, scientific communication had been developing almost 400 years in the direction technologically defined by print on paper.
