Press: “Two more reasons for Library Outposts: the DPLA and YouMedia Learning Labs”

“If in fact a DPLA is realized, it will strengthen the case to deconstruct existing library services and offer different kinds of information access in different places.  The DPLA’s clean slate approach has the potential to connect and magnify the success and the considerable digital content already offered by projects like the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, or the American Memory project.  The public good that could come of making convenient, customizable access to all of this information (and more) is mind boggling.  If this happens, DPLA content might eventually become a significant amount of all of the material a library offers, and the only thing that will differentiate a good library from a bad one will be how well the librarians design localized context for the electronic content.  Every year libraries invest more and more of their scarce resources in electronic content.  Eventually, libraries will follow Amazon’s lead and we will ‘circulate’ more electronic content than physical books.”

From Nate Hill’s post on Public Library Association Blog, “Two more reasons for Library Outposts: the DPLA and YouMedia Learning Labs”

For more on the idea of library outposts serving urban public libraries, read Nate Hill’s post on Catch and Release here.