Over the summer, we gave a wide-ranging update on the accomplishments of our Wikimedia Project to date and promised forthcoming news on what’s coming up next. In the last few months, we have launched several new projects with renewed funding, and we are also working to increase collaboration and idea-sharing with the launch of the new Wikimedia Working Group.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce the release of January 6th on the Record: The Investigation into the Attack on the U.S. Capitol, a free ebook compendium of materials related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the subsequent hearings held by the House Select Committee investigating the attack. At DPLA, we believe that open and convenient access to information is an essential service core to the role libraries have played in democratic societies for generations. Part of our commitment to maintaining access to information for all is the publication of free, easy-to-read ebook versions of important government documents.

We are pleased to share that the DPLA Board of Directors elected Felton Thomas, Jr., executive director and CEO of Cleveland Public Library, as its new chair at its annual  meeting last month. His term as chair will extend through June 2025. Thomas will replace Denise Stephens, the Peggy V. Helmerich Dean of University Libraries at the University of Oklahoma, whose term of service has ended after six years, the last three of which she served as board chair. 

On Tuesday, we gathered with more than 70 of our colleagues for an information session on our recently announced Digital Equity Project. Our goal was to give some context and background on the project, share information on our big-picture plans and the opportunities this new funding presents, and answer questions from our community.  In 2019, […]

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce the release of our latest publication, an ebook version of the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. 

Today, I am pleased to share that we have partnered with an initial cohort of three organizations to form a Digital Equity Project Community of Practice: Charlotte Mecklenburg Library; Seattle Public Library; and DPLA’s Recollection Wisconsin Hub / University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Each of these organizations will receive subgrant awards to pursue a project dedicated to digital capacity building.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce an $850,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support its effort to advance racial justice in American archives. This funding will enable DPLA to launch a digital equity project to develop community-based partners and increase partner capacity to lead this work. The three-year project will provide support for underrepresented, under-resourced archives and expand DPLA’s capacity for supporting and partnering with diverse archival projects.

I am pleased to share that we have reached an agreement with Audible to make their audiobooks available to libraries through Palace Marketplace (formerly DPLA Exchange). The first batch of Audible audiobooks, including titles from authors Marie Benedict, Neal Stephenson, and Andy Weir, are already available, and titles will continue to be added to Palace Marketplace on a rolling basis.

Today, we are pleased to share that DPLA has received a new $150,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to further DPLA’s work to advance The Palace Project. This funding will allow us to expand Palace Marketplace, the only not-for-profit ebook and audiobook marketplace, as well as Palace Bookshelf, our collection of more than 11,000 open-access ebooks curated by the DPLA Curation Corps of librarians.

Yesterday, we hosted the first of a series of book talks we are presenting in partnership with the MIT Press.  Author Alexander Monea joined us to talk about his book The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight, in conversation with Angel Ysaguirre, executive director of the University of Chicago’s Court Theatre.

Dear Friends of DPLA, We are looking forward to being back at ALA Annual in just a couple of short weeks, and hope to see many of you in person for the first time in far too long. We are pleased to share that there will be several opportunities to gather with DPLA colleagues and […]

Last summer, we shared the news that we and our partners at LYRASIS were launching The Palace Project, a transformational library-centered platform for the delivery of digital content, made possible by a multi-year, multi-million dollar investment by the Knight Foundation. Today, we are pleased to announce that The Palace Project platform and app have launched, and more than 100 libraries already are using Palace.

With over 200 million pieces of metadata from about 1 million items—and these have already received over 100 million page views. As we wrap up the second year of this initiative, we’d like to share some of our outcomes so far, and discuss the new phase we will soon enter.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce the publication of a free ebook, The Covid Archive: A finding aid to government documents related to the Covid19 Pandemic. The Covid Archive is a digital finding aid for the digital archive of government documents related to the response of U.S. federal and state governments […]

Last week, the DPLA community gathered to explore two topics critical to our mission of advancing equitable access to knowledge for all.  On Monday, April 11, at our quarterly Open Board + Community Meeting, Kelvin Watson, DPLA board member and executive director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, moderated a conversation with two librarians […]

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce that more than 85,000 titles from Penguin Random House (PRH) and PRH distribution partners are now available in Palace Marketplace (formerly DPLA Exchange), the only not-for-profit library e-content marketplace. Palace Marketplace now offers more than 1 million ebooks and audiobooks from more than 1,000 publishers, […]

Curatorial work with large archival collections is challenging.  In order to find artifacts related to a chosen topic, curators have to sift through thousands – sometimes millions – of materials and determine which are truly relevant.  Machine learning can help streamline curatorial workflows by analyzing complex datasets and making some of their underlying patterns legible. 

Dear Friends of DPLA, In DPLA’s 2019 strategy, we articulated a three-pronged mission-driven approach that guides all of our work. One of these guidelines is our optimism about and belief in the transformational potential of technology for unleashing knowledge and enabling creativity. And, furthermore, we believe that libraries and cultural heritage institutions can and must […]

Several times a year, DPLA Chief Technology Officer Michael Della Bitta shares updates on our tech team’s projects, processes, and works-in-progress. This is his first update of 2022.

DPLA board member Felton Thomas, President and CEO of Cleveland Public Library, reflects on our latest Open Board and Community Meeting.