DPLA’s ‘Corps’ Mission: Providing High-Quality, Expert-Curated, Open Access Collections for All
This is a guest post authored by DPLA Curation Corps Team Leader, Georgia Westbrook.
Librarians and other information professionals are key to keeping the doors to knowledge – both in person and on the internet – open for all. That’s why DPLA created the Curation Corps, a group of 12 former and current librarians and information professionals who use their expertise across collection development, government documents, open educational resources, and cataloging (among many other areas!) to make more open access and public domain content available through the Palace Bookshelf.
Since its founding almost 10 years ago, the Curation Corps has made over 23,000 titles available to the libraries and the public.
To make these resources available, the Curation Corps team members review book files for quality and content, carefully research titles and authors, and craft easy-to-read summaries about each book. Every resource on the Palace Bookshelf is vetted and selected based on its value and interest to readers: curating the records – selecting the best of the best – is a key role of the Corps.
The Corps has reviewed variety of classic titles that are available for free on the Palace Bookshelf, including:
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- My Bondage and My Freedom, by Frederick Douglass
- A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf
- Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
- The Wonderful World of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
The Palace Bookshelf also holds things you might not expect, like open textbooks, government documents published by DPLA, like the Report of Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, and children’s books, including the entire The Wizard of Oz series.
Because these books are available as a high-quality, librarian-curated collection, libraries can confidently integrate these titles into their own collections, free of charge. For libraries using The Palace Project, that integration is seamless and automatic. As of today, over 600 Palace libraries are integrating the Bookshelf into their collections.
Several Curation Corps members have also supported other DPLA initiatives. For example, Matthew Davis leads work to support collection development for the Palace libraries acquiring content through the Palace Marketplace, our non-profit ebook and audiobook marketplace developed in consultation with libraries, for libraries. Jill Egan serves as lead curator for The Banned Book Club, which makes ebook versions of banned books available to readers in locations across the United States where titles have been banned And Miriam Tulio leads a small team that reviews self-published titles in the Palace Marketplace Indie Catalog to make recommendations for libraries looking to add to their collections.
On a personal note, I have to say that being a part of the Curation Corps is incredibly fulfilling work. As a former open educational resources librarian, I have seen firsthand how the cost of educational materials, especially textbooks, can increase the cost of higher education. The Curation Corps plays a part in addressing that problem through our work. Our efforts put more free public domain materials into the hands of people, which can lead to fresh art and innovation that makes the world a more interesting place.
And finally, I love knowing that we’re providing a well-reviewed and free collection that can be integrated into online offerings without any additional vetting on librarians and libraries; our community relies on the help of each other and the Curation Corps puts that ethos into practice.
– Georgia Westbrook, Curation Corps Team Leader
The DPLA Curation Corps is a group of librarians, information professionals and library graduate students who develop collections for the DPLA’s ebook projects including the Palace Bookshelf, Open eBooks and Palace Marketplace. DPLA relies on the expertise of the library community members who participate in the Curation Corps to create collections patrons will love. Learn more here.