Container technology enables the encapsulation of information content together with rules and controls specifying the types of content usage permitted and the consequences of usage, such as triggering of report generation and payment. Containers have been proposed as a mechanism for securing intellectual property rights. This paper outlines other possible applications of container technology, including support for compound documents that incorporate active content, and automation of processes involving multi-party peer-to-peer interactions for the purposes of collaboration and commerce. Such value-added services are of particular interest in the context of digital libraries aiming to provide functionality extending beyond that of a simple repository of electronic documents. This paper presents the design of a container framework in the context of an architecture for network-centric applications.