電子圖書館自九十年代後半期起，已成為資訊界重要的研究課題，也成為圖書館發展的重要目標。由於電子出版、資料數位化、網路、多媒體技術等的發展與普及，使得電子圖書館儼然成為一種全民運動，也是每一種學科領域都會加入的活動。本文從電子圖書館的定義，發展現況，研究課題等角度入手，試圖勾勒出二十一世紀電子圖書館的發展趨勢。

Digital libraries is the most important research issues in information science and development goals of traditional libraries recent year. Due to the development of electronic publishing, material digitization, multimedia, and network technology, digital libraries seem to be the activities of everyone and every field. This paper describe the definition, current status, research issues of digital libraries, and hope to predict the trend of digital libraries in the 21 century.