StackLife: A Unique Way to Browse, Read Digital Public Library of America Books | Harvard Library Portal

"At its launch this week, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is featuring StackLife DPLA as an example of how the DPLA’s collection of books can be mashed up with other collections and browsed in highly innovative ways.   StackLife DPLA, launched today by the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, lets users find and freely read 1.7 million books from the DPLA, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Hathi Trust and the Internet Archive’s Open Library.   StackLife DPLA enables users to browse via scrollable virtual shelves that cluster—and can instantly re-cluster—books based on their multiple subject areas. With a click, a user can read the book online.   The depth of color of a book on a StackLife DPLA shelf indicates how often a work has been read. The length of that image of the book indicates how long ago it was published and its thickness indicates how many pages are in it.   'StackLife DPLA is wonderful example of the power of the approach we’ve taken,' said Dan Cohen, executive director of the DPLA. 'It demonstrates that an independent group, such as the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, can put our collection to new and unanticipated uses. We are thrilled with the result.' StackLife DPLA extends a version of StackLife created for the Harvard Library, adding social features and including only works that are readable online. The Harvard version lets users browse more than 12 million physical and digital items in the Harvard collection, and includes tools of use to a research community. Both versions are Open Source projects.   StackLife DPLA was supported by a DPLA Sprint grant."