Digital library development in Brazil

The Internet came to Brazil early, and was quickly recognized as an exciting new means of communication, highly appropriate for a technologically advanced and recently democratized society. This paper identifies and characterizes the principal Brazilian digital library initiatives in science and research; education; literature and the humanities and history and politics. Government financing was critical for the implementation of Brazilian digital libraries. Institutions with a strong background in advanced technology had an advantage when entering the digital library field. Cooperative projects have also had significant impact.