Digital Public Library of America » Blog Archive » Press: Building the Digital Public Library of America

“The Digital Public Library of America will launch on April 18 after two and a half years of careful planning and preparation. The project known as DPLA is the first national effort that seeks to aggregate existing records in state and regional digital libraries so that they are searchable from a single portal. Up until now, the documents that tell the story of our nation’s history and cultural heritage have largely been siloed in state and local libraries, museums, and archives. Some institutions have the ability to digitize those valuable materials and put them online, but strained budgets mean that most do not. The project’s funding will also allow it to work with local communities to digitize their cultural-heritage—preserving them for the future and bringing them online as part of our first national digital library.DPLA will bring together access to a diverse host of materials that were once stored on a patchwork of different websites, or not online at all, including newspapers, photographs, letters, newsreels, oral histories, manuscripts, books and public records. This could be a game changer for academic researchers and historians, who will be able to see more apparent connections between various local histories, perhaps for the first time. Students, teachers and amateur historians will be able to peruse DPLA’s rich exhibits and learn about their own history and genealogy. And local communities will see their history preserved rather than lost to the deterioration of time. The first step toward what will become the Digital Public Library of America emerged from an October 2010 meeting at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The project has been able to develop quickly in part it will provide linkages to existing content, not build a new collection. Emily Gore, DPLA’s director of content, explains that it is 'really building off of existing infrastructure to get this thing going.'   Six state digital libraries and one regional library collective will act as The Digital Public Library of America service hubs, forming its core. These hubs already aggregate digital content from dozens, if not hundreds, of institutions within their areas—from large universities to small, local historical societies. They bring to the Digital Public Library of America not only their rich and diverse collections, but also their knowledge about how to execute large-scale, collaborative digital projects. 'The seven service hubs are currently working on normalizing their metadata to share with the Digital Public Library of America. Post-launch, the hubs will expand by bringing new content and partners into the national library and planning community outreach to get as many local groups as possible aware of and involved in the project. 'The Digital Public Library of America will also launch in April with an impressive list of content hubs. While Harvard University is the only content hub officially announced so far,  Gore anticipates that the Digital Public Library of America will soon be able to confirm that the Smithsonian, National Archives and Records Administration, New York Public Library, ARTstor, and a few other large, academic libraries will have their materials ready in time for the April release. 'DPLA leaders, including Gore and most of the service-hub directors, met in February at the Knight Foundation Libraries Conference, 'From Building Collections to Making Connections,' to talk about the April launch and plan for challenges moving forward. 'The group identified a number of issues they’re grappling with, including ..."