Interested in building with the DPLA API? Then come to LibHack! LibHack, taking place on January 24, 2014, is a library hackathon that will work with the DPLA and OCLC APIs.

The DPLA Board of Directors held a conference call on Monday, December 16 at 4:00 PM Eastern. The call was open to the public.

This is a reminder that our next open committee call will take place on Wednesday, December 4 at 2:00 PM Eastern. Topics related to the Technical Advisory committee will serve as the subject of this call.

In a workshop led by members of the DPLA Legal Committee, which includes Jason Schultz (NYU Law) and David Hansen (Berkeley Law & UNC Law), and in conjunction with Argyri Panezi (European Univ. Institute) and Meredith Jacob (American Univ., Washington College of Law), a full room of DPLA Fest 2013 workshop participants explored the broad range of copyright issues that affect the online availability of library collections.

The DPLA Board of Directors held a conference call on Monday, November 18 at 4:00 PM Eastern. The call was open to the public.

At this year’s DPLAfest opening reception on October 24, the three main elements of the DPLA model were re-iterated to the audience: that it is a portal, a platform, and a principle of open access for the public. These ideas were touched upon independently throughout the October 25 workshop series, as you can see in the conference live notes: it’s use as a portal in relationship to community outreach, or it’s use as a platform in emerging technological advances using our open access API, among other topics. However, these three DPLA missions really merged together in the discussions surrounding content.

A major thread throughout DPLAfest was the focus on building our communities of partners and users—many of whom were present to both celebrate their involvement with the DPLA and learn new ways to expand on that relationship. There was also a hands-on component that helped interested organizations not yet part of the DPLA network become involved.

While our nearly 20 workshops at this year’s DPLAfest covered a wide range of topics (which you can recap using the conference live notes), a major theme in both presentations and discussions centered around using the DPLA’s API and metadata—specifically, how users can be involved in using that data, while also helping to clean it up in a way that is vetted and accurate. It was a subject that was interwoven into a variety of workshops throughout the day on October 25.

Just last week, from October 24-25, we held our first DPLAfest—two days of vibrant discussions and workshops that brought together more than 450 librarians, archivists, museum professionals, developers, technologists, publishers, authors, teachers, students and others from across the country.

With just a few days left before the start of this year’s DPLAfest, we’re all hard at work to put together a memorable experience for participants. There are a lot of chances to learn something new, talk through ideas, and see what tools the DPLA has to offer researchers and institutions. With so much happening, a quick look at the full agenda for Friday might seem overwhelming. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the many interesting workshops.

In the hopes of capitalizing on the amazing wealth of knowledge and energy in our community, we’re excited to kickstart a monthly series of open conference calls separate from the Board calls focused on topics related to our four operational committees.

During its September 2013 open call, the DPLA Board of Directors announced the formation of a couple of Board committees responsible for carrying out formal governance functions.

The DPLA Board of Directors held a conference call on Wednesday, September 11, 2013. The call was open to the public.

The open call for workshop suggestions and ideas for DPLAfest 2013 closed on August 8. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

The DPLA Board of Directors will hold a conference call on Monday, July 15, 2013. The call is open to the public.

On Sunday, June 30, DPLA Executive Director Dan Cohen, Director for Content Emily Gore, Assistant Director for Content Amy Rudersdorf, and Project Coordinator Kenny Whitebloom met with a number of folks from participating DPLA institutions, as well as members of the public interested in the DPLA’s work.

For those of you attending the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago, IL later this week, we’ve devised a handy DPLA @ ALA scheduler so you can catch all of the latest from the DPLA and DPLA staff members.

Save the date! On October 24-25, 2013 the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) will bring together librarians, archivists, and museum professionals, developers and technologists, publishers and authors, teachers and students, and many others to Boston, MA to celebrate the DPLA’s successful April 2013 launch, its recent milestones, and its future at the first annual DPLAfest.

A couple of weeks ago DPLA Executive Director Dan Cohen was in Los Angeles, California, where he gave a presentation at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Taper Auditorium

Dan Cohen, Founding Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) will be the featured speaker in the ALA President’s Program & Awards Presentation at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference on Sunday, June 30, 2013.