Digital Library and Digital Reference Service: integration and mutual complementarity

Both the digital library and the digital reference service were invented and have been developed under the networked environment. Among their intersections, the fundamental thing is their symbiotic interest - serving the user in a more efficient way. The article starts by discussing the digital library and its service and the digital reference service and its collection. Then, based on a series of case studies, the article explores the necessity of their three-dimensional integration, i.e. the completely parallel integration, the digital reference service affiliated with a digital library and a digital library integrated into the reference service. It is proposed that the two communities could achieve improvement simultaneously through mutual complementarity.