The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is excited to announce the publication of twenty-one new Primary Source Sets. These sets provide rich new primary sources from libraries, archives, and museums across the country that are classroom-ready for students and educators alike.

A summary report from “Past, Present, and Future of the Digital Public Library of America,” an event held at Harvard University on February 2. The event focused on the founding values of DPLA—a commitment to free, open access to knowledge for all—and how the vision for, and work of, DPLA intersects with the mandates, challenges, and opportunities facing libraries across the country in today’s media and information landscape.

We are once again pleased to team up with libraries, archives, and museums across the country and around the world for #ColorOurCollections week, a celebration of public domain reuse and proudly coloring in your free time, taking place February 5 through February 9, 2018.

Last month DPLA released an update to our Metadata Application Profile (MAP), bringing us up to version 5.0. DPLA Data Services Coordinator Gretchen Gueguen explains the new features in MAP 5.0 and how they will impact our website, services, and partners.

There shouldn’t have to be special days to reflect upon the importance of women in our society, but today’s “A Day Without a Woman” presents a good opportunity to highlight just how critical women have been and are to our organization, our community, and the broader public we serve together.

2016 was another exciting and busy year at the Digital Public Library of America, with extensive growth of our national network, the launch of an important projects to standardize rights statements, provide greater access to ebooks, curate our materials for education, and improve the technical systems our community relies upon.

In 2015, DPLA announced the formation of the Archival Description Working Group to find ways to accommodate this diversity in descriptive practice within our data. Today that group is releasing its whitepaper, “Aggregating and Representing Collections in the Digital Public Library of America.”

On July 1, 2016, the Digital Public Library of America had several transitions on its Board of Directors. Two of our original board members rotated off the board at the end of their second terms, and two new board members joined in their stead. We wish to salute the critical roles that Paul Courant and Laura DeBonis played in our young organization, and give a warm welcome to Denise Stephens and Mary Minow as we continue to mature.

Held at the Colorado Convention Center, the Public Library Association’s 2016 Conference empowered attendees with the tools to return to their library and “Make It Extraordinary.” As the Digital Public Library of America, DPLA is utilizing its national network of libraries and cultural heritage institutions to explore how it can help improve the state of library ebooks.

Four DPLA staff members recently attended LDCX at Stanford University. The annual conference is a chance for those in the library, archive, and museum (LAM) communities who work with technology to collaborate on solutions to common problems.

Two weeks ago we were thrilled to join The New York Public Library, First Book, and Baker & Taylor in announcing the launch of Open eBooks, an app containing thousands of popular and award-winning titles that are free for children from low-income households. You may be wondering: what was DPLA’s role in all of this?

Since our launch almost three years ago, the Digital Public Library of America has sought to maximize access to our shared culture. Thanks to our many library, archive, and museum partners, we’ve been able to share over 11 million items, including a wide range of artifacts, documents, artworks, photographs, audiovisual materials, and, of course, many books.

Join the adult coloring craze and put your colorful spin on these illustrations from our collection.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is very pleased to announce the release of its second group of Primary Source Sets about topics in US history, literature, and culture, along with new features for navigating our growing project.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is very pleased to announce the release of its first group of Primary Source Sets about topics in US history, literature, and culture. These sets were developed and reviewed by a new Education Advisory Committee for use by students and teachers in grades 6-12 and higher education. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to additional resources, and a teaching guide. This project was generously funded by the Whiting Foundation.

This month will mark the 111th annual World Series of Baseball. As the final teams of the National and American Leagues battle it out in their divisional series, DPLA takes a look back at a type of publication that arose during baseball’s formative years: 19th century sports or fitness manuals.

We are pleased to announce the membership of the Archival Description Working Group. In addition, we have appointed an Advisory Board that will help the workgroup by reviewing drafts before public release and providing feedback on workplans and tools.

Through the Public Library Partnerships Project (PLPP), DPLA has been working with existing DPLA Service Hubs to provide digital skills training for public librarians and connect them sustainably with state and regional resources for digitizing, describing, and exhibiting their cultural heritage content. Through the project workshops, we used this curriculum to introduce 150 public librarians to the digitization process. Now at the end of the project, we’ve made this curriculum available in a self-guided version intended for digitization beginners from a variety of cultural heritage institutions.

Over the past fifteen months, representatives from the Europeana and DPLA networks, in partnership with Creative Commons, have been developing a collaborative approach to internationally interoperable rights statements that can be used to communicate the copyright status of cultural objects published via the DPLA and Europeana platforms.

Sunday night there wasn’t a cloud in the sky in Boston, and so we were fortunate to get a clear view of the rare supermoon eclipse. I took a telescope out to the backyard with my kids and we worked to line up the equipment, and then we chatted about astronomy, optics, and physics, umbras and penumbras. A moment of science? Yes, but ultimately much more.