Digital Public Library of America

Discover 48,248,122 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States

Read for free with Palace Bookshelf!

The Palace Bookshelf is a collection of more than 15,000 open access ebooks that are available for free download. The collection includes classics, children's books, textbooks, foreign language titles, and more. Image courtesy Recollection Wisconsin via dp.la.

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Online Exhibitions

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Prisoners at Home: Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps

American Aviatrixes: Women with Wings

History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives

A History of US Public Libraries

Primary Source Sets

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Voting Rights Act of 1965

Pablo Picasso's Guernica and Modern War

Elie Wiesel's Night and the Holocaust

Stonewall and Its Impact on the Gay Liberation Movement

Environmental Preservation in the Progressive Era

How can I use DPLA?

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Education

Educators and students explore our Primary Source Sets to discover history and culture through primary sources and ideas for classroom use.

Family Research

Genealogists use our search tools to find free materials for their family history research projects.

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Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learners enjoy browsing by topic and viewing Online Exhibitions to learn more about their interests.

Scholarly Research

Scholarly researchers use DPLA to find open access sources from archives across the country through a single portal.

If you’re new to DPLA, these research guides will give you a head start using our site. The guides reflect a few key activities that attract visitors to DPLA, but you can explore many other interests here too.

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DPLA News

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DPLA hosts conversation about Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
June 6, 2023
Yesterday, we were pleased to host author Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Libraries, for a timely conversation with former DPLA board member, author, and Plympton co-founder Jennifer 8. Lee…
Library leaders reflect on 2023 Knight Library Conference
March 15, 2023
Late last month, we had the pleasure of working with Knight Foundation to bring together 50 library leaders from across the country. Our conversations focused on how libraries are meeting…
Leveraging Wikimedia for increased visibility + upcoming coffee chat
February 15, 2023
A single point of access to the riches of America’s cultural heritage stewarded by libraries, archives, and museums across the nation. Ten years ago, that was the audacious founding vision…