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Il Centro Linguistico I seminari COMUNITA' VIRTUALI FROM THE DIGITAL LIBRARY TO THE VIRTUAL LIBRARY Giovanni V. MOSCATI For more than thirty years, libraries have been involved in the development and implementation of integrated systems of automation, with results that have been more or less satisfactory according to the means, resources and programs adopted. In this context, the INTERNET has provided a considerable impulse. The development of library services through INTERNET has been so rapid and "explosive" that the network of networks has been defined as: "the world library in the digital era". My paper intends to do a rapid excursus of these problems and to consider if the so-called "virtual library", "computer library" or "library without walls" (that is, a library which has the capacity to search for and find information at the very moment and time it is needed, and in the right form, without leaving the office or home) really exists or not. In this general context, I will examine a few practical solutions, talk about controversies among experts and propose a working "model" for how the library, especially the university library, can take its place in and interact with the community of the humanities. Moreover, I will outline a way to transform the library from a catalogue center of "physical" documents to an organ for cataloguing network resources. In fact, the library will become a "search engine" which can - as has been said - "put the anarchy of the network into order" by uniting computer criteria with the more than millennial experience of library management. Finally, I will show a few telematic library services like inter-library loan, document delivery services via e-mail, personal shelves and others. Torna al programma