DELOS is a Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries partially funded by the European Commission in the frame of the Information Society Technologies Programme (IST). The main objectives of DELOS are research, whose results are in the public domain, and technology transfer, through cooperation agreements with interested parties. Its main objective and goal is to develop the next generation of Digital Library technologies, based on sound comprehensive theories and frameworks for the life-cycle of Digital Library information. DELOS is currently working on the development of a Digital Library Reference Model that is designed to meet the needs of the next-generation systems, and on a globally integrated prototype implementation of a Digital Library Management System, called DelosDLMS, which will serve as a concrete partial implementation of the reference model and will encompass many software components developed by DELOS partners. They are two major steps in the direction of the DELOS vision