The members to this quantity view electronic libraries (DLs) from a social in addition to technological point of view. They see DLs as sociotechnical platforms, networks of know-how, info artifacts, and folks and practices interacting with the bigger global of labor and society. As Bruce Schatz observes in his foreword, for a electronic library to be precious, the clients, the records, and the data approach needs to be in harmony.The participants start by way of asking how we assessment DLs -- how we will be able to comprehend them to be able to construct greater DLs -- yet they flow past those simple matters to discover how DLs make a distinction in people's lives and their social worlds, and what learning DLs may let us know approximately info, wisdom, and social and cognitive approaches. The chapters, utilizing either empirical and analytical tools, learn the social impression of DLs and likewise the internet of social and fabric kin within which DLs are embedded; those far-ranging social worlds comprise such disparate teams as group activists, environmental researchers, middle-school kids, and computing device approach designers.Topics thought of comprise records and society; the genuine barriers of a "library with out walls"; the ecologies of electronic libraries; usability and assessment; info and institutional switch; transparency as a manufactured from the convergence of social practices and data artifacts; and collaborative wisdom building in electronic libraries.