Library Stuff

“Buried in the archives of America’s public and academic libraries are historical treasures — old papers, photos and records — that flesh out a detailed picture of our past. Many libraries are trying to make it easier to find that material by putting digital copies online. But with so many different websites and databases to turn to, it may still require a research degree in Web searching to find anything. This spring, a program launched that aims to put all that great stuff in one place: the Digital Public Library of America.” (via NPR)

“The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is extremely excited to announce that an anonymous donor has stepped forward to provide substantial support towards its efforts. The $447,000 grant will allow the DPLA to accelerate its work of bringing together America’s collections and providing new pathways into them. “This is an incredible vote of confidence in our mission, especially during this important early stage of our development and in the lead-up to our fall DPLAfest, which will bring together so many to celebrate our April 2013 launch, recent milestones, and bright future,” said Dan Cohen, Executive Director of the DPLA.” (via Digital Public Library of America)

“The HathiTrust Digital Library will partner with the recently launched Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to expand discovery and use of HathiTrust’s public domain and other openly available content. DPLA provides an online portal to freely available digital material held by libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. By offering a unified discovery point for these disparate collections, DPLA aims to make readily available to the public the words, images, sounds, and objects of America’s shared cultural heritage.” (via Digital Public Library of America)

“On Tuesday, June 11, 2013 the White House will honor twelve people as museum and library “Champions of Change.” According to the White House’s official press release, the “event will focus on libraries and museums who make a difference for their neighborhoods and for our nation.” We’re extremely proud to share that Jamie Hollier, a DPLA Board member, is part of that distinguished group of museum and library innovators.” (via DPLA)

“The Digital Public Library of America, to be launched on April 18, is a project to make the holdings of America’s research libraries, archives, and museums available to all Americans—and eventually to everyone in the world—online and free of charge. How is that possible? In order to answer that question, I would like to describe the first steps and immediate future of the DPLA. But before going into detail, I think it important to stand back and take a broad view of how such an ambitious undertaking fits into the development of what we commonly call an information society.” (via The New York Review of Books)

“The Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is joining with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to provide online access to thousands of historical materials archived at Illinois. As part of the cooperative partnership, the University Library will contribute metadata for 15 of its digital image collections.” (via Digital Public Library of America)

“The beginnings of the first public, national, on-line library will soon be unveiled in Boston – home to the country’s first publicly supported municipal library. A prototype of the Digital Public Library of America, or DPLA, will launch during a two-day event, which will include a series of events April 18 and 19 at the Boston Public Library, according to leaders of the digital library. The project’s primary focus is to make materials from the United States available through its on-line platform. Initially, the project will concentrate on written records – books, magazines, manuscripts, digital text – and eventually hopes to include other media, like images, movies and audio.” (via Boston.com)

“ARTstor is partnering with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to provide access to more than 10,000 high-quality images from six leading museums. As part of its collaboration with ARTstor, the DPLA will aggregate and make available data records and links to images from six major American museums: the Dallas Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art (paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection), the Walters Art Museum, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery. In addition to linking to the original contributing museum’s own website, each DPLA record will link to the image in Open ARTstor, a new ARTstor initiative that allows users to view and download large versions of public domain images.” (via Digital Public Library of America)

“The Smithsonian Institution will join with the Digital Public Library of America to provide links to a wealth of the Institution’s cultural and scientific content. The DPLA pilot project, which combines and centralizes links to the collections of participating cultural institutions, launches April 18 in Boston. The Smithsonian will serve as a digital content hub within the DPLA network, which provides links to the Smithsonian’s digital collection of books, journals, museum objects, manuscripts and videos. Through the DPLA, the Smithsonian Libraries will collaborate with renowned libraries, universities, archives and museums to reach a wide national audience.(via Digital Public Library of America)

“Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that the National Archives, as a leading content provider to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), will help launch its first pilot project. The DPLA is a large-scale, collaborative project across government, research institutions, museums, libraries and archives to build a digital library platform to make America’s cultural and scientific history free and publicly available anytime, anywhere, online through a single access point.”

via Digital Public Library of America