DPLA Press Roundup: December 15 – January 15
Small Town Noir, and Four Other Astonishing Digital History Sites We Loved in 2013
“The Digital Public Library of America, which launched this year, is a platform that taps records from local and state-level digital repositories, allowing you to search many different databases at once. You can find items within the five and a half million records that make up the DPLA using simple keywords (here are more than 9,000 items related to Christmas); geographical search (here’s a search for items related to Philadelphia); or time period search (here’s the timeline of all DPLA items). DPLA searches often lead me to smaller digital archives I never knew existed, making the platform the ultimate historian’s rabbit-hole.”
From Rebecca Onion’s post on Slate.com, Small Town Noir, and Four Other Astonishing Digital History Sites We Loved in 2013
The Top 10 Library Stories of 2013
“At #8, Digital Public Library of America Launches. In many ways, 2013 was a year of rocky rollouts (Affordable Care Act, Common Core, anyone?). But the launch of the nonprofit Digital Public Library of America bucked that trend. In the spring of 2012, Harvard University librarian Robert Darnton guaranteed the DPLA would launch, on time, in April of 2013—it did. And not only that, unlike some other initiatives in the news, its Web site worked brilliantly. So much so, that it, cracked Time Magazine’s roundup of the 50 best Web sites of 2013.”
From Andrew Albanese’s post on Publishers Weekly, The Top 10 Library Stories of 2013
Digital Public Library of America: la abundancia de conocimientos
“Durante los últimos veinte años las bibliotecas, los archivos y los museos han desarrollado proyectos de gran escala de la digitalización de libros, documentos, y objetos antiguos e históricos. Los resultados de la digitalización se encuentran en las plataformas web de las instituciones responsables y los tesoros, los metadatos, y los objetos digitales viven aislados dentro de sus propios sistemas, sin poder comunicarse con otras colecciones de materiales que se relacionan de tema, período histórico y contexto. La única falla es que tienen la casualidad de pertenecer a otra institución. ¿Qué tal si existiera un solo repositorio que proporcionara acceso a una gran mayoría de las colecciones digitales del país en un solo punto de encuentro? ¿Un lugar dónde los usuarios pudieran hacer una búsqueda integrada entre miles de distintas colecciones de repositorios de todo el país con un solo clic? ¿Un lugar dónde los desarrolladores de software pudieran encontrar todos los datos abiertos en un solo lugar para poder desarrollar nuevos apps innovadores para bibliotecas y museos? El lugar supuestamente imaginario ya existe, y podemos encontrarlo en la Biblioteca Pública Digital de los Estados Unidos (conocida en inglés como Digital Public Library of America, y por sus siglas DPLA). Siganme en este post para saber más acerca de este interesante y valioso proyecto que está cambiando la realidad de la difusión y acceso al patrimonio cultural digital de los Estados Unidos.”
From Natalie Baur’s post on Infotecarios, Digital Public Library of America: la abundancia de conocimientos
Pixel Dust: Illusions of Innovation in Scholarly Publishing
“On a final note and theme, the boundaries between publishers and libraries are being debated in university environments as part of this larger set of conversations. Libraries have a crucial role to play in making data and projects and other scholarly materials available. But they cannot do the expensive and time-consuming work of a publisher. Finding an alternative to Google (or any other private company) as the default support system for access to the broad cultural inventory is essential. The most exciting and potentially transformative initiative in this realm right now might be the DPLA, the Digital Public Library of America. Meant as an integrated portal to online materials stored in academic and public repositories, the project was the brainchild of Robert Darnton and a team of gifted and dedicated scholars, librarians, academics, and other cultural visionaries. Not a publishing venture, it is envisioned as a fully public, completely integrated online library with access to the highest quality of ongoing knowledge production. Currently being developed under the stewardship of Dan Cohen, who during his tenure at George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media was responsible for some of the most reliable noncommercial platforms for online cultural work — Omeka and Zotero — the DPLA is a brilliant and ambitious idea that will only succeed if it captures imaginations in the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.”
From Johanna Drucker’s article in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Pixel Dust: Illusions of Innovation in Scholarly Publishing
Top 10 Innovative Moments of 2013
“At #3, Digital Public Library of America. The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launched in April 2013, marking a large-scale collaborative effort to create a universal digital public library, uniting leaders and educators from various government agencies, libraries, archives and museums. NARA is proud to be a participant in this exciting online portal and platform, and contributed 1.9 million digital copies for the launch of DPLA, including our nation’s founding documents, photos from the Documerica Photography Project of the 1970’s, World War II posters, Mathew Brady Civil War photographs, and a wide variety of documents that define our human and civil rights. The National Archives’ participation in this exciting project marks a new opportunity to share our content more broadly, open new doors for research and discovery, and engage and connect with users from across the United States and around the world.”
From Meredith Doviak’s post on NARA’s Inside Innovation blog, Top 10 Innovative Moments of 2013
Digital Public Library of America brings vast collections to your computer
“Progress sometimes is a double-edged sword. While technology can make some tasks easier, you often end up losing some of the human element that adds richness to your life. That’s certainly the case with the Digital Public Library of America (dp.la). The website allows you to search the digital collections of member libraries, archives and museums from all over the country without getting out of your chair. It’s a resource that can save a tremendous amount of time when doing research.”
From Kevin O’Neill’s article in the Scranton (PA) Times-Tribune, Digital Public Library of America brings vast collections to your computer
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