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The advent and growth of digital communications & information technology
has accelerated the globalization of science. With the evolution of cost-effective tools
and processes to share both instruments and thought, scientific and technological programmes
are being distributed increasingly among remote geographic facilities and organizations.
VL require tools featuring the most advanced techniques of instrument control, data sharing,
collaboration in an "electronic commons," and the rapid dissemination of results to an
international audience of scholars, economic actors, and the public via electronic publishing.
Such incipient structures promise to become powerful assets to educate new generations of scholars.
Geographical distribution of participants is essential to the scientific and technical goals of
a VL project.
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