Late last month, we had the pleasure of working with Knight Foundation to bring together 50 library leaders from across the country. Our conversations focused on how libraries are meeting the needs of this moment in our history and the evolving and essential role libraries play in our communities and our nation at large. We will extend this conversation at our Open Board + Community Meeting on April 10, 2023, at 2p ET; this meeting is open to all and we invite you to join us. In the meantime, we asked several of our colleagues to share their reflections on and takeaways from last month’s gathering with us:

A single point of access to the riches of America’s cultural heritage stewarded by libraries, archives, and museums across the nation. Ten years ago, that was the audacious founding vision of DPLA. To more fully realize that vision, DPLA has pioneered a program that connects our nation’s cultural heritage to Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. Late last month, DPLA presented more about this work at ALA’s inaugural LibLearn X in New Orleans. 

Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce the launch of a new independent author catalog in Palace Marketplace. Palace Marketplace now offers more than 1.2 million ebooks and audiobooks from all of the “Big 5” publishers, Amazon Publishing, Audible, hundreds of mid-sized and independent publishers, and independent authors. The addition of these new titles will help libraries expand access to diverse content at reasonable licensing terms while supporting independent authors.

Our mission at DPLA is to maximize access to our shared history, culture, and knowledge. One of the ways we do this is through our ebooks program, which is an important and growing area of our work. Our ebooks work includes our management of Palace Marketplace, the only non-profit digital content marketplace for libraries; Palace Bookshelf, our ever-expanding collection of more than 15,000 open-access ebooks; and DPLA Publications, our collection of free, easy-to-read ebook versions of public documents. 

A $750,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the Digital Public Library of America will fuel a multi-year effort to connect America’s cultural heritage institutions with Wikipedia, the world’s free online encyclopedia. This grant will offer an opportunity to make millions of cultural treasures from hundreds of American libraries, archives, and museums freely available online, including Renaissance manuscripts from Philadelphia’s Science History Institute; historic photos of the Pacific Northwest from Seattle Public Library; and portraits of 18th-century actors from the University of Illinois.

This is the second blog in a series from DPLA’s Digital Equity Project: Advancing Racial Justice in American Libraries. (You can find the first here.) This month, I am pleased to share with you an update from Teresa Cain, Sarah Gherghel, and Debbie Rubenstein at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library on the library’s Living Archives, one of […]

This is the first blog in a series from DPLA’s Digital Equity Project: Advancing Racial Justice in American Libraries. Derek Webb, Head of Archives at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries shares how the partnership between the Libraries and The Milwaukee Women’s Art Library and their collaboration on a new community ambassador position seeks to bridge […]

Digital Public Library of America recently launched a new application to run a core part of its infrastructure, the DPLA API. This software upgrade improves security, performance, reliability, and privacy for our users. It also allows developers to adapt to new services and maintain the code over time. The DPLA tech team transitioned to the […]

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.