See something new today with the Digital Public Library of America | The Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities

"The Digital Public Library of America is an extraordinary new resource worth checking out immediately, especially if you have some free time to spare. It took me some time to realize the potential of this platform, so I offer this post as a brief explanation of some of the features as well as a reflection on the importance of the project.   I have structured this post according to the three main elements of the online platform, as described on the DPLA website:  1. A portal that delivers students, teachers, scholars, and the public to incredible resources, wherever they may be in America. Far more than a search engine, the portal provides innovative ways to search and scan through the united collection of millions of items, including by timeline, map, format, and topic.  2. A platform that enables new and transformative uses of our digitized cultural heritage. With an application programming interface (API) and maximally open data, the DPLA can be used by software developers, researchers, and others to create novel environments for learning, tools for discovery, and engaging apps.  3. An advocate for a strong public option in the twenty-first century. For most of American history, the ability to access materials for free through public libraries has been a central part of our culture, producing generations of avid readers and a knowledgeable, engaged citizenry. The DPLA works, along with like-minded organizations and individuals, to ensure that this critical, open intellectual landscape remains vibrant and broad in the face of increasingly restrictive digital options. The DPLA seeks to multiply openly accessible materials to strengthen the public option that libraries represent in their communities ... I want to highlight the second sentence in the first element: 'Far more than a search engine, the portal provides innovative ways to search and scan through the united collection of millions of items, including by timeline, map, format, and topic.'  The designers of the DPLA created a stunning digital springboard which facilitates exploration of digital documents, maps, artifacts, and art. With a clear agenda, one can easily perform a standard search on the main page. But to me, the more exciting options are to 'explore by place' and 'explore by date.' The visual presentation of the metadata is aesthetically satisfying and easy to navigate. And since the DPLA brings together the collections of state and regional digital libraries (which themselves aggregate the metadata of local historical society, museum, and library collections), you are sure to find something that piques your interest.  The potential for developers and innovators to work with the metadata provided by the DPLA brings us to element number 2: A platform that enables new and transformative uses of our digitized cultural heritage. With an application programming interface (API) and maximally open data, the DPLA can be used by software developers, researchers, and others to create novel environments for learning, tools for discovery, and engaging apps.  So far there are seven apps created by independent users or groups for the DPLA. These are accessible through the app library. I found Stack Life and Culture Collage to be particularly interesting. Stack Life uses the metadata in the DPLA to allow users to search a superset of books from the Hathi Trust and the Open Library. The search engine returns results in the form of a vertical stack of books. The shade of the book shows how often it has been accessed- darker signifies more and lighter signifies less. The thickness of the book reflects the length in pages. The length (or really the height) of the book represents the publishing date: shorter books were published more recently than longer books. I like this app because it allows relationships to emerge that would otherwise be hidden within the individual entries of each result.  Culture Collage is more of a visual discovery tool. My favorite feature is the 'lucky dip,' which generates searches based on random words. See the results for anthropophagy, for example. Now, press the reset button in the upper right hand corner and watch as a new set of images floods the screen ... Another app of note is WP DPLA, which was developed in response to THATCamp CHNM 2013 Maker Challenge. The plug-in is designed to function with WordPress, and its purpos