behave just as born-digital materials do. A library such as LC will presumably first digitize treasures of its own but will then wish to have access to those of other libraries (just as it makes its own available in digital form). All of the categories of cooperation and collaboration outlined above for materials born digital will thus apply here.

The discussions here of collection, preservation, and cataloging all point to this end. In the world of print materials, LC’s strategy was straightforward: to leverage its statutory rights of collection (through copyright deposit) to achieve physical collections of unparalleled size and quality. In the digital realms, LC starts with many fewer advantages. The digitization of its own existing collections can give it, to be sure, tremendously rich and exciting materials for a new digital collection. But no matter how aggressively LC collects digital materials, achieving a truly universal collection will now increasingly mean recognizing that not everything can be collected, because the volume of digital information is so great. Also, many publishers and distributors of material of high value will produce material in a form that must be consulted remotely and cannot be physically added to the working collections of the Library. When physical possession is not possible or desirable, it will be all the more important that firm and secure links between LC and other stakeholders in the information community are established. If LC possesses a physical book, it can take its own steps to ensure preservation and accessibility—or even, if appropriate, to practice relative neglect—thereby making it possible for a book to be usable generations after its creation. (Some medieval manuscripts lay neglected, literally on top of storage cabinets, for as long as centuries, but they were still immediately readable on rediscovery.) Where LC possesses the original source files or identical copies, preservation will be a demanding chore. Where LC does not possess the digital source files, assurance of preservation and access will require coordination of a complicated social, legal, and economic strategy.

No library in the world has the prestige or the influence of the Library of Congress, if LC will only use it. Over the last two decades, the Library has been too little visible on the national and international stage, particularly in the digital arena. Too many of the stunning achievements of LC leadership and collaboration are now receding into the hallowed past. Moreover, it has been the case that projects and/or exhibitions of great