In early 2024, Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) set out to select a new, durable and long-term home for our signature cultural heritage aggregation program. The 12-year program connects libraries, museums, archives, and other collections across the United States and now counts over 50 million digital items in its catalog.
We were looking for a partner with the capacity to help grow the work to the next level, the ability to support and sustain the project into the future, a commitment to values of equity and inclusion, experience with collaborative projects, and proficiency in working with large-scale digital infrastructure.
Following a rigorous application and selection process, guided by the DPLA board and supported by an external steering committee, a new home was selected in July 2024. We are confident that the collection of America’s digital heritage will be well cared for by our new partner. While we are eager to share details, there is a lot of work in front of us before we will be ready to make a joint announcement. We plan to share more about the new home, and how you can be involved in designing that new work, in the fall.
In the meantime, the work continues uninterrupted. We will maintain our aggregation services throughout the transition and continue to ingest material as planned—you can view the schedule here. As has been our practice we are scheduling summer check-ins with each hub—please reach out if you are a hub and have not yet heard from us. DPLA hay monthly virtual office hours, every second Tuesday of the month at 11am PT / 2pm ET (direct Zoom link). We will use those conversations to inform our future work and will update our transition FAQ below.
Below is more information on the process of how we found a new home for this amazing program.
ANNOUNCEMENTS & UPDATES
An Update on the Future of Our Cultural Heritage Work (October 31, 2024)
We’re on track to make a formal announcement about our new home this fall. We are eager to share the official news and even more excited to dive into what lies ahead. This transition represents not just growth, but a new chapter filled with possibilities for expanding our impact and creating deeper connections across communities. Thank you for your patience and support as we work toward this vision. We look forward to the new year, and to the future we’ll build together.
End of Summer update from DPLA (August 29, 2024)
Since choosing a new home in July 2024, we have begun establishing the partnership that will anchor this important collaboration. We are thrilled with how this process has evolved and expect to be able to announce the name of our partner in the fall.
DPLA will continue to host and support our cultural heritage aggregation work throughout 2025, maintaining the work as we have in the past and even offering expanded services, as well. 2025 will be a transition year for DPLA, which we will use to collaboratively design with our partners how we fully launch in the new home in 2026.
DPLA Open Board + Community Meeting: Update on the RFP Process (July 8, 2024)
Featuring an overview of the search process by our consultant Sarah Lutman. See the video and this document for more information.
An update on our process and progress, and a look at our amazing advisors (May 31, 2024)
One Step Closer to a New Home for America’s Digital Heritage (May 2, 2024)
Applications open to find a new home for America’s digital heritage (April 3, 2024)
Towards a new fund and home for America’s digital heritage (March 28, 2024)
READ OUR PROGRAM ASSESSMENT REPORT
In Fall 2023, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) engaged 8 Bridges Workshop to conduct a program assessment of its work to aggregate digital cultural heritage materials from libraries, archives, and collections across the United States under a single portal at dp.la and make them freely accessible to the public.
Led by 8 Bridges’ principal, Sarah Lutman, the assessment comprised multiple activities, guided by a task force of the DPLA board of directors and John Bracken, DPLA’s executive director. The process also included 64 small group and individual interviews. Themes from 8 Bridges’ research and conversations were culled and presented at an open community meeting of the DPLA network and Board of Directors on October 16, 2023. The slide deck documenting this work is available here.
The program assessment – prepared by Lutman, 8 Bridges principal Greta Rudolph and associate Patricia Johnson – yielded an initial conclusion that the network supporting the aggregation work was not only robust, but also ready to do more to make the effort sustainable. 8 Bridges ultimately recommended that DPLA instigate and support a transition of the cultural heritage work to a new organizational home, one better equipped to provide durable capacities to secure our country’s cultural heritage for today and for generations to come.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
This FAQ covers questions and details about DPLA’s process for identifying and selecting a new home.
What is “aggregation”?
DPLA’s cultural heritage aggregation project takes metadata records from a variety of different types of institutions, parses it to obtain values for a standard set of metadata fields, and creates new records for each. The resulting set of metadata is loaded into a search index, which makes these records available for API and Web users.
Our providers, each of which are a DPLA Hub, provide their metadata in a variety of formats and via a variety of transmission mechanisms.
Who is eligible to apply to take on this work?
The ideal new home for America’s cultural heritage should have organizational experience with both cultural heritage and collaborative projects; technical acumen and capacity; a demonstrated commitment to building a more equitable society; and the ability to support and sustain this work for the long term.
Our new home could be a public library system or private foundation, a community nonprofit or a university archive. We are open to any of your ideas and welcome all expressions of interest.
What parts of the aggregation platform and membership program is the new host expected to maintain?
The future host will inherit the technology, as well as the existing community and governance structure built around it. DPLA is not setting explicit parameters on how the future work will be accomplished. If applicants are interested in proposing alternative models—such as changes to the membership fee structure—we would encourage them to propose this during the process so it can be factored into the steering committee’s assessment.
What are the current technical, infrastructure, costs and staffing requirements for this work?
Minimal staffing to maintain the digital aggregation work is 2-4 FTEs—including 1-2 developers, and 1-2 community managers. The costs of storage, hosting, and bandwidth for this work runs between $50k-$70k annually. Of course DPLA, and our network, also believe this work could be greatly expanded as it grows to meet its ambitious original vision.
Could there be a collaborative effort?
Yes, collaborative efforts are welcome.
What is the current user base for the aggregation platform?
The primary users of the dp.la portal are librarians and researchers, in addition to students and other searchers who regularly find the site through search engines or resource guides. The aggregation is also accessed in other ways, such as by external API consumers, the DPLA Local custom sites, and Wikimedia Commons.
Are membership fees relevant to/expected in the new model with new leading partner(s)?
Membership fees and their relevance in the new model will be addressed as part of the transition discussions.
Who’s on the Steering Committee?
We are honored to have assembled a group of advisors with such breadth of experience, deep care and thoughtfulness, and keen insights on the future of this work. The committee reviewed and advised on candidates and applications. Ultimately, the DPLA board made the final decision on what new home was selected.
The Steering Committee is:
- Ann Hanlon, Head of Digital Collections and Initiatives, Recollection Wisconsin
- Lucas Hernandez, Director, Digital Skills, Microsoft
- Tameka Hobbs, Library and Cultural Center Library Regional Manager, African-American Research
- Martin Kalfatovic, Director, IIIF Consortium
- Ben Lee, Assistant Professor, University of Washington
- Jennifer 8. Lee, Co-founder and President, Plympton
- Nicco Mele, Venture Partner, Draper Richards Kaplan
- Mauricio Palma, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
- Chelcie Rowell, Associate Head of Digital Collections Discovery, Harvard Library
- Maggie Snow, Director, Minitex
- Bronlynn Thurman, Program Officer, GAR Foundation
- Julie Walker, State Librarian & Vice Chancellor for Libraries and Archives, State Library of Georgia
- Keila Zayas Ruiz, Network Coordinator, Sunshine State Digital Network
Can you say more about the fund you’re raising?
Discussions with funders about raising funds to sustain cultural heritage aggregation are ongoing. While nothing is certain in foundation funding before a grant is approved, the foundations who have supported DPLA in the past have shown strong interest in this important transition.
If you have funders on the table, why not continue DPLA as currently constituted rather than taking this action?
We conducted a strategic review last fall and concluded that a small nonprofit such as DPLA is less able to achieve the scale necessary to build and grow this work into the future than an organization, or organizations, with existing capacity across all needed functions.
How did you make the decision to transition to a new home?
The transition process began in September 2023 with an evaluation of our cultural heritage program. The decision to transition was facilitated by Sarah Lutman of 8 Bridges Workshop and involved interviews with stakeholders, small group meetings, an examination of the funding landscape, and a realistic assessment of DPLA’s capacity to support the work at the scale necessary.
What is the timeline for this process?
The search for a new home for DPLA’s aggregation program began in Spring 2024, with an announcement from Executive Director John Bracken.
- Expression of Interest applications due: April 30, 2024
- Official RFP issued to invited candidates: May 14, 2024
- Proposals due: June 11, 2024
- Proposal review and interviews with applicants: June 12 – July 9, 2024
- Final selection: July 8, 2024
- Announcement: Fall 2024
Proposals were reviewed first by DPLA staff and consultants, then the Steering Committee for this process, and finally by the DPLA board of directors. The DPLA board made the final decision.
Can we expect harvests to continue at established intervals through the end of this
calendar year?
Yes, harvests are expected to continue as scheduled throughout the transition period.
What is the impact of this transition on the existing DPLA Network Council?
The Network Council will continue to convene regularly and collaborate closely throughout the transition process.
What does this decision mean for DPLA working groups?
DPLA working groups will remain an integral part of our community, and programming collaborations will continue through the end of 2024. Any changes to working groups will be based on decisions by the Network Council.
What happens to the DPLA Local sites?
Details regarding the local sites and their future will be determined as part of the transition process. The DPLA Local sites are considered part of the cultural heritage program, included in this transition process. We have no reason to expect any of the additional services, including DPLA Locals, would need to be discontinued by the new host.
What does this mean for DPLA’s Wikimedia work?
Our Wikimedia work is a direct outgrowth of the DPLA aggregation and is one of our best examples of the benefits of aggregating cultural heritage because it allowed us to build the technology—a single shared pipeline for digital assets to Wikimedia—that is now being leveraged by hundreds of institutions across the country. This project is inextricably linked to our cultural heritage aggregation so we expect it will be part of any transition.
Will any of the DPLA staff be taken on by any new organization?
The staffing of this work going forward will be determined by the entity that is awarded the project.
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Last updated November 1, 2024