摘要：Art as an applied practice depends much on the material medium of communication. The availability of the medium, on the other hand, means much to the creator, patron, publisher and the audience/spectator/reader. The scarcity and costliness of the material medium determines, to a great extent, the nature and type of art. In the case of written texts, for instance, the primitive materials –stones, animal skins, papyrus etc, also played a great role in making logos sacred. In other words, scientific and technological inventions and innovations in the field of communication influence the production/reproduction of literature almost politically; as such that that they gather around themselves over the ages ideological colours. Now in our time we are witnessing a new medium revolutionizing the production, reproduction and access of arts—namely the digital medium. The digital mode and medium offers certain facilities of communication, dissemination and preservation which other modes and medium cannot. A digitally produced or reproduced literature can be incorporated into a computer programme for automatic response to a user’s query from any corner of the earth and at any time provided that, as Borgman says, i.) the user has the basic technical knowledge and skills, ii.) the technology is viable, iii.) the information is relevant and usable (Borgman 2000, 57). Following the principle of automation, digital libraries arose and from the very beginning they depended on the classics for popular and academic acceptance. In thispresent paper I present a survey of the selective digital libraries, which through open access system are contributing immensely to the process of democratization of literature.
