248 Бібліотечна, архівна та музейна діяльність в умовах розвитку інформаційного суспільства Digital Libraries in Poland – the present state and the development perspectives Renata Malesa Institute of Library Science and Scientific Information, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Pl. Marii Curie – Sklodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, POLAND; e-mail: renata.malesa@gmail.com Abstract – Digital libraries have been fundamental both in Polish and in global library science for more than a dozen years. The first Polish collections which are available via the Internet appeared at the end of the 1990s. Nowadays there exists a range of over 100 different projects, the vast majority of which is within the Federation of Digital Libraries (FDL) which was set up in 2007. This article aims to analyse the present state of digital libraries in Poland (that is the size and contents of the collections, the types of software, the problems and standards of drawing up compilations, and the accessibility rules), as well as the perspectives of their development in the future. Кеуwords: digital library in Poland, virtual library, information society, Federation of Digital Libraries. The functions and types of libraries have undergone changes since the time they appeared. It may seems that nowadays the role of libraries is increasing in the information society. Unfortunately, these institutions are not given too much credit in the official documents concerning the new social order. The technological development in libraries resulted in changes in the way of gathering and accessibility of documents, the character of the collections, as well as the standards of cataloging. Digital libraries have become an important component of both Polish and global librarianship for several years. Their appearance was brought about by a rapid increase of a number of electronic documents, providing the Internet users with the digital collections and new technological possibilities. The first Polish collections which are available via the Internet appeared at the end of the 1990s.