Digital Public Library of America Appoints Four New Board Members, Announces New Committees

By Kenny Whitebloom, April 17, 2013.

Cambridge, MA –The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce the appointment of four new members to its Board of Directors. The Board supports the DPLA’s goal of creating and maintaining a free, open, and sustainable national digital library resource.

The four new members include renowned historians, librarians, and media studies scholars:

  • Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and University Librarian at Harvard; Former DPLA Steering Committee member
  • Jamie Hollier, President of Anneal, Inc.; Partner, Commerce Kitchen
  • Amy Ryan, President of the Boston Public Library; Former DPLA Steering Committee member
  • Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Professor in Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia

“Libraries are temples to the republic,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Professor in Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. “They are where citizens seek guidance and connection with each other. The Digital Public Library of America has the potential to connect citizens all over the world to each other and to the best sources of knowledge through their public and school libraries. I can’t think of an organization I would be more proud to serve.”

“The Digital Public Library of America is creating a platform that will forever change the landscape of access to our nation’s culture, history, and knowledge,” added Jamie Hollier, President of Anneal, Inc. “I am honored to be able to apply my skills and expertise to this important work through the Board of Directors and look forward to working with all of the amazing individuals, organizations, and collections that are part of this endeavor. ”

Working closely with Dan Cohen, DPLA Executive Director, the Board seeks to fulfill the DPLA’s broad commitment to openness, inclusiveness, and accessibility, and it endeavors towards those ends in the best interest of its stakeholders, employees, future users, and other affected parties.

Full biographies of the entire DPLA Board of Directors can be found here.

NEW COMMITTEES ANNOUNCED

The DPLA is also thrilled to announce the formation of a new committee structure for the operational DPLA, slated to launch on April 18, 2013. The new committees—which fundamentally build upon the achievements of the planning initiative’s six original workstreams—are comprised of experts and leaders from a wide range of fields in private and public industry, government, academia, public and academic libraries, and other innovative sectors. Each committee will provide advice and recommendations to the DPLA in key areas of expertise.

The committees include:

  • Advisory Committee
  • Content Strategy Committee
  • Legal Committee
  • Marketing and Outreach Committee
  • Technical Advisory Committee

Each committee is led by a small team of co-chairs. A group of 10-20 volunteer convening workstream members is responsible for seeking out and incorporating public input into the activities of the committee. Participation in all committees is open to the public.

Detailed descriptions of the new committees and its convening members are included below.

Advisory Committee

Composed of former Steering Committee members and others appointed by the Board of Directors, the Advisory Committee provides advice and recommendations to the Board of Directors on matters of concern and interest to the Advisory Committee, its members, and the DPLA in general. It deliberates on topics raised by other DPLA committees and crosscutting issues brought forth in public DPLA engagements, and it serves an important advocacy and community-building role.

The convening members of the Advisory Committee include:

  • Carla Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore, MD)
  • Charles Henry, Council on Library and Information Resources
  • Michael Keller, Stanford University
  • Deanna Marcum, Ithaka S+R
  • Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
  • Dwight McInvaill, Georgetown County Library (South Carolina)
  • Peggy Rudd, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
  • David Spadafora, The Newberry
  • Doron Weber, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  • Michael York, New Hampshire State Library

Content Strategy Committee

The purpose of the Content Strategy Committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the Executive Director, Director for Content, and staff on matters pertaining to the DPLA’s long-term strategy for identifying and acquiring new content, partnering with data- and service-providing organizations, and other related matters. It also recommends guidelines on bibliographic data, metadata, interoperability, and international cooperation, in coordination with the Technical Advisory Committee.

The convening members of the Content Strategy Committee include:

  • (Co-Chair) Emily Gore, DPLA
  • (Co-Chair) Rachel Frick, Digital Library Federation
  • Margy Avery, MIT Press
  • Christine Borgman, GSE&IS, UCLA
  • Peter Brantley, hypothes.is
  • Susan Chun, Cultural Heritage Consulting
  • Jill Cousins, Europeana
  • Linda Crowe, Peninsula Library System
  • Martin Gomez, University of Southern California Libraries
  • Robert Darnton, Harvard University, DPLA Board of Directors
  • Robin Dale, LYRASIS
  • Betsy Kruger, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
  • Dwight McInvaill, Georgetown County Library (South Carolina)
  • James Shulman, ARTstor
  • Jena Winberry, Council on Library and Information Resources
  • Jeremy York, HathiTrust

Legal Committee

The purpose of the Legal Committee is to inform the Board of Directors, Executive Director, and others about legal and copyright issues affecting equitable knowledge distribution in a digital world, including work toward better understanding and influencing digital lending, orphan works, international works, metadata ownership, strategies for tiered access, and dealing with vendors and materials under various kinds of restrictions. It also seeks to facilitate engagement with the broader legal community around legal issues relevant to the DPLA, digital libraries, and digital access in general.

The convening members of the Legal Committee include:

  • (Co-Chair) Jim Neal, Columbia University
  • (Co-Chair) Pam Samuelson, Berkeley Law School & School of Information
  • Kim Dulin, Harvard Library Innovation Lab
  • David O’Brien, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
  • Jason Schultz, Berkeley Law

Marketing and Outreach Committee

The purpose of the Marketing and Outreach Committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the Executive Director, Director for Content, and staff on matters pertaining to the DPLA’s strategies for marketing and community outreach, including developing community engagement events, identifying new and existing modalities/channels for the DPLA to collaborate with organizations, and working to identify, describe, and target key institutional and personal end-user demographics. It also provides advice and recommendations to the Executive Director, Director for Content, and staff on matters pertaining to the DPLA’s strategy for identifying and partnering with content- and service-providing organizations, in collaboration with the Content Strategy Committee.

The convening members of the Marketing and Outreach Committee include:

  • (Co-Chair) Carla Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore)
  • (Co-Chair) Nate Hill, Chattanooga Public Library
  • (Co-Chair) Peggy Rudd, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
  • Rachel Bower, Scout Report
  • Michael Colford, Boston Public Library
  • Ginnie Cooper, Washington, DC Public Library
  • Chris Freeland, Washington University in St. Louis
  • Toby Greenwalt, Skokie Public Library
  • Glen Hoptman, Lightbeam Group
  • Andrew McLaughlin, betaworks
  • Frances Pinter, Knowledge Unlatched
  • Tom Sanville, LYRASIS
  • Aaron Schmidt, Influx
  • Maureen Sullivan, American Library Association 

Technical Advisory Committee

The purpose of the Technical Advisory Committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the Executive Director, Director for Content, and staff on matters pertaining to the DPLA’s long-term technical development, including ongoing development of the metadata platform, open API(s), front-end functionality, in-house and third-party applications, and other related endeavors. It also seeks to facilitate engagement and enthusiasm within the larger tech community around the DPLA platform and its related components.

The convening members of the Technical Advisory Committee include:

  • (Co-Chair) SJ Klein, Wikimedia Foundation
  • (Co-Chair) Martin Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Institution
  • John Blyberg, Darien Public Library
  • Soleio Cuervo, Dropbox
  • Robert McDonald, Indiana University
  • Carole Palmer, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
  • Robert Stein, Dallas Museum of Art
  • Chuck Thomas, University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions Library Consortium
  • Jill Vermillion
  • David Weinberger, Harvard Library Innovation Lab
  • Pamela Wright, National Archives and Records Administration

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About the Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. The DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used.

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