On June 6, 2003, Dr. David McArthur gave a presentation on "Digital Libraries and the Future of Academic Libraries" at the North Carolina Central University School of Library and Information Sciences.

Abstract: Dr. David McArthur reviewed work he has done, together with colleagues at North Carolina Central University, UNC Wilmington and Virginia Tech, to develop iLumina, a digital library of educational resources created by and for faculty and students in higher education. iLumina is one of the federated collections that comprise the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), an ambitious new program of the National Science Foundation. The first part of the presentation outlined iLumina and how it relates to the NSDL as a whole.

The second part of the presentation discussed, in broadly speculative strokes, how digital libraries such as iLumina, and federations, such as the NSDL, might change traditional academic and research libraries. Some have said digital libraries will make academic libraries, and librarians, obsolete. Others view them as a passing fad. A third perspective argues that digital libraries will change some things about scholarly information creation, management, and distribution, while other aspects will endure. This is almost certainly true. But the question is: what won't change, what will change, and how?