The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), The New York Public Library (NYPL), and LYRASIS are pleased to announce a new collaboration to help provide all public libraries with a free, open, library-controlled platform for managing their ebook and audiobook services.

We are pleased to announce a partnership with BiblioBoard’s Indie Author Project, through which DPLA Exchange libraries and their patrons will now have unlimited access to the latest and greatest in indie publishing.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded DPLA a $1.5 million grant. The grant will enable DPLA to expand its efforts to provide an improved ebook experience for libraries and their patrons, building on its cultural heritage aggregation program.

On the DPLA Ebooks Team, we are excited about our role supporting library-driven platforms for e-content delivery. Check out what we are up to this fall, and stay tuned for updates and possibilities for innovation over the coming months.  

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce the launch of Open Bookshelf, a digital library collection of popular books free to download and handpicked by librarians across the US.

Later this week, the Digital Public Library of America will be in New Orleans for the annual meeting of the American Library Association, where we will be talking about our ebook work after one year of running a successful pilot and participating in a national ebook summit. Learn more about the tools and collections we’ve built and our collaborative approach to maximizing access to ebooks.

DPLA staff are headed to the Big Easy this week for the American Library Association Annual Conference and we look forward to connecting with the broad and diverse library community. We’ll be sharing updates on our work around ebooks in four great sessions, connecting with friends and partners across the library community, exploring creative models for engagement between libraries and non-profits, and much more.

DPLA is pleased to welcome six new members to the DPLA Curation Corps, a group of librarians and information professionals who will curate and offer guidance on Open Bookshelf.

DPLA is pleased to welcome the newest members to the DPLA Curation Corps, a group of librarians and information professionals who will curate and offer guidance on Open Bookshelf, a collection of open access content available through the DPLA Exchange.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is proud to launch the DPLA Exchange, a pilot program to test a new model for a library-owned and library-centered ebook marketplace for popular ebooks, together with openly-licensed ebooks.

At DPLAfest this past April, the DPLA Board of Directors approved a plan to move forward with an ebook pilot aimed at improving access to a broad selection of open and licensed ebooks through market-based methods.

We are exploring how DPLA may be able to broaden access for users by helping libraries move to an open service architecture. What does maximizing access to ebooks look like? Facilitating discovery of free, open content; unlocking previously gated content through new licensing and/or access models; and facilitating better purchasing options for libraries.

The Digital Public Library of America is thrilled to announce that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded DPLA $1.5 million to greatly expand its efforts to provide broad access to widely read ebooks. The grant will support improved channels for public libraries to bolster their ebook collections, and for millions of readers nationwide to access those works easily.

We are very pleased to welcome and introduce six new members of the DPLA Curation Corps, a group of librarians and other information professionals from around the country who will continue to select and curate the books available in Open eBooks and provide guidance for DPLA’s ongoing work to help maximize access to our collections of ebooks and library ebooks overall.

With DPLAfest 2016 larger than ever, we reached out to a few attendees ahead of the event to help us capture the (many) diverse experiences of fest participants. These ‘special correspondents’ have graciously volunteered to share their personal perspectives on the fest. In this first of two guest posts by our special correspondents, Sara Stephenson, Kerry Dunne, and Emily Pfotenhauer reflect on their fest experiences from the perspectives of their fields and interests: education, ebooks, and the growing DPLA hub network.

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.

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.

February 23, 2016 – Open eBooks, a new initiative and e-reader app that will make thousands of popular, top-selling eBooks available to children in need for free, is launching today. First Lady Michelle Obama is releasing a video today raising awareness of the new opportunity for children. The initiative is designed to address the challenge of providing digital reading materials to children living in low-income households, and offers unprecedented access to quality digital content, including a catalog of eBooks valued at more than $250 million.

Come work with us! We’re pleased to share an exciting new DPLA job opportunity, Ebook Project Manager. The deadline to apply is August 31. We encourage you to share this posting far and wide!