Digital Public Library of America

Discover 52,675,301 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States

DPLA provides free digital access to banned books

DPLA has launched The Banned Book Club to ensure that all readers have access to the books they want to read. The Banned Book Club makes e-book versions of banned books available to readers nationwide via the free Palace e-reader app.

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Online Exhibitions

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Race to the Moon

A History of US Public Libraries

Building the First Transcontinental Railroad

From Colonialism to Tourism: Maps in American Culture

Primary Source Sets

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The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi

Second Ku Klux Klan and The Birth of a Nation

John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry

The Equal Rights Amendment

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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Open Call to Host DPLAfest 2025
February 4, 2025
DPLAfest is coming back this year! This will be our first time holding DPLAfest since 2019. If you are interested in hosting DPLAfest at your institution, we want to hear…
New Report: Why We’ve Been Checking Out Tiktok
January 29, 2025
The digital town square. The public soap box. The decentralized water cooler. Social media platforms have become all these things and more. They’ve revolutionized how we communicate, connect, and consume…
Save the Date for IndieLib 2025!
January 23, 2025
We are excited to announce that the second annual IndieLib Forum for Independent Publishers and Librarians, co-hosted by Independent Publishers Caucus and DPLA, will be held on Wednesday, April 16,…