While user-centered design has been emphasized, much of the discussion of digitallibraries is concerned about choosing Web-based technology to create a digitizedcollection and establish related infrastructure. An investigation into the potentialusers of a community-based digital library suggests that some critical social, ecologicaland cultural aspects of information-related behavior of those users need to be takeninto account for a digital library to accomplish its goals. This paper reports on anempirical study of scholarly communication among users of the Taiwan HistoricalArchives and how those scholars and researchers find and use information. Severaldesign principles are suggested based on the findings of such user study.