The Council on Library and Information Resources produces a number of written works to inform the community of library specialists on a host of important and pressing topics, including preservation awareness, resources for scholarship, and digital libraries. This particular work came out of an invitational conference sponsored by the Council in May 2003 which was designed "to examine the key factors shaping the information environment in which libraries operate and how these factors will affect stewardship of the cultural and intellectual resources vital to education and research." Subsequently, the Council asked four experts in the field to address several key features of the changing landscape; after their responses were received the papers were joined together and published here on this site. The respondents included Daniel Greenstein of the California Digital Library, Anne Kenney of Cornell University Libraries, and Bill Ivey of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University. Overall, this timely work will be of great interest to practitioners in the field of information and library science and digital archive management, among others.