Library Stuff

“Treasures from libraries and archives across North Carolina will soon be at the fingertips of researchers worldwide. The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (NCDHC) in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library will be the state hub and conduit to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) — an organization that provides a single point of access for millions of books, photographs, documents, sound recordings and moving images from some of the leading libraries and archives across the country.” (via The Herald-Sun)

“At the start of the summer we announced the introduction of the HathiTrust Digital Library as a DPLA Content Hub. Now, with the summer winding down, we’re excited to share that 1.7 million metadata records associated with almost 3.5 million of HathiTrust’s freely available books, journals, government documents, and more are now accessible on dp.la and through the DPLA application programming interface (API). That doubles the DPLA’s offerings from 2.4 million records in April to almost 4.5 million today.” (via Digital Public Library of America)

“The University of Southern California Libraries have become the first library in California to partner with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) as a content hub. USC has contributed more than 250,000 items from the USC Digital Library to the DPLA, including photographs, text documents, moving images, and digital audio, all of which are now accessible to the DPLA’s global audience of scholars, students, and public researchers. Launched in April, the DPLA’s collection comprises more than 2.8 million items, creating a unified, massive, scholarly and cultural resource for the study of the United States’ digitized heritage. The newly added USC Libraries’ collections will more than quadruple the amount of material available through the DPLA relating to the history of Los Angeles and Southern California.” (via Digital Public Library of America)

“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)