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Research libraries were among the first to embrace and exploit the potential of the World Wide Web after its debut in the 1990s. They quickly began constructing virtual information landscapes, including policies, services, and collections that not only shaped but also defined the realms of possibility within such terrain. In their roles as both terra-formers and cartographers of these spaces, libraries generally modeled the virtual terrains as electronic counterparts of physical libraries. In recent years, gaps have materialized in the virtual terrain, meaning the landscapes they constructed do not provide certain services, resources, or possibilities expected by emerging user populations like the millennial generation. These rifts often represent fundamental disconnects between the values of today's library users and the historical, core values of libraries that shaped the first generation of online information landscapes. In this article, the authors classify those disconnects into three categories--technology, policy, and unexploited opportunities--and discuss ways academic libraries can create next-generation landscapes to address these gaps. If academic libraries want to retain and expand their usefulness for online users in the next decade of the Web, these core disconnects must be addressed today. (Contains 4 endnotes.)

The article focuses on the environmental landscape that will look first at portals within the framework of libraries and then expand that view to the framework within higher education in general. Currently within academic and some public libraries there has been a movement toward portalization of library content, especially online electronic resources. This type of Web access can be thought of in three distinct categories: Customizable E-resource portals, Integrated Web service portals and Metasearch systems that contain portal features. A typical use of portals in libraries is as a framework for presenting customized views of electronic resources. These types of portals serve as aggregators for customers to arrange and display information resources in a manner that best serves their information needs. It also enables customers to pick and choose from countless resources that are provided by the typical research library without having to delve through a catalog of resources or other such electronic listing of information products.