A Year-End Note from the Staff of DPLA Here at DPLA, we are capping off an eventful 2024 and looking forward to an even more momentous year to come. We’re reflecting on all we’ve accomplished this year. Here are some highlights: Turning the page on ‘24, writing our new chapter in ‘25 Look for a […]

Readers across the country can now access banned books for free via the Palace app Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and our partners at Lyrasis have made over 1,300 titles that have been removed from schools and libraries available to all Americans for free through The Banned Book Club, available on the Palace app […]

This is a guest post authored by DPLA Curation Corps Team Leader, Georgia Westbrook. Librarians and other information professionals are key to keeping the doors to knowledge – both in person and on the internet – open for all. That’s why DPLA created the Curation Corps, a group of 12 former and current librarians and […]

Dear friends of DPLA,  We’ve had a busy summer at DPLA, as we make the turn into fall I wanted to share an update on all the things that we’ve been up to. At our Community + Open Board meeting in July, we shared an update on our process for selecting a long-term home for […]

Digital Public Library of America and Independent Publishers Group have partnered to rewrite the future of providing ebooks to benefit libraries, authors and readers alike Chicago, August 13, 2024 – The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Independent Publishers Group (IPG) have announced a groundbreaking agreement that will transform how American libraries provide access […]

Last month, I joined friends and colleagues from around the country at the American Library Association’s 2024 Annual Conference. Yet again, DPLA helped co-host the day-long ALA Ebook Interest Group meeting, now affectionately known as “ALA Ebook Friday.” My own day got off to a wild start. While surfing early that morning, I was stung […]

DPLA will be at the ALA Annual Conference in San Diego later this month and we hope to see you there.

Our award-winning Banned Book Club will continue to highlight brilliant and beautiful works being taken off library shelves Last July, DPLA launched the Banned Book Club to ensure that all readers have access to the books they want to read. The Banned Book Club allows readers in communities directly affected by book bans to access […]

The history of book bans is the history of the fight for power. We know that, time and again, book bans seek to specifically and disproportionately silence black, brown and LGBTQIA+ authors and stories. While book bans continue across America, DPLA is proud to be part of a group of leading libraries committed to counteracting […]

Please join us for the first IndieLib Forum, an exciting new event that will bring together libraries and independent publishers. In recent months, DPLA has been working closely with the Independent Publishers Caucus to explore ways that libraries and independent publishers can work together for mutual benefit.  To further this work, we will co-host IndieLib […]

Library lovers and self-published authors have a lot in common—they share a passion for books and reading and a desire to democratize access. For many years we at DPLA have heard interest from librarians in acquiring self-published titles. But because the corpus of self-published titles is so vast, deciding what to include in a library collection can feel like an overwhelming task to busy library selectors. When DPLA added our Indie Catalog, with nearly 500,000 self-published titles, to Palace Marketplace last year, we set out to alleviate this burden on libraries by creating Indie Selections, our own selections of self-published titles, carefully curated by our Curation Corps of librarians. 

As 2023 draws to a close, I want to thank each of you in DPLA’s ebook community for your continued support of and enthusiasm for our efforts to expand access. 2023 was a year of great growth in our ebooks work, and I wanted to reflect on some of those highlights with you: 

When the conversations that resulted in the birth of the Digital Public Library of America in 2010 began, it was with the belief that everyone should have access to knowledge and that the transition to digital should expand, not limit, that access. More than 10 years later, these principles are still guiding our work, despite the big shifts we’ve witnessed in our field and across our nation.

Since 2017, DPLA has been helping libraries meet the growing demand from readers for ebooks and audiobooks by working with publishers to provide licensing terms that help libraries maximize access and get the most out of their dollar. While the variety of options and licensing terms we have developed have been well received by our partners, they still do not allow libraries to own digital content outright, the way they do physical books.

Palace Bookshelf provides free access to more than 19,000 ebooks. To access Palace Bookshelf, just download the free Palace e-reader app for iOS or Android and choose Palace Bookshelf as your library. You can also browse Palace Bookshelf here. All Palace Bookshelf e-books are free to download and yours to keep.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce a new partnership with the University of Chicago Library to expand The Banned Book Club. We launched The Banned Book Club in July 2023 to ensure that every reader in communities where books have been banned can access ebook versions of banned titles for free via the Palace app. This new collaboration between DPLA and the University of Chicago Library will expand access to The Banned Book Club to all readers in Chicago and the state of Illinois and underscores our shared commitment to ensuring intellectual freedom for all.

DPLA’s mission is to maximize access to knowledge, and one of the ways we do that is by working to make the best possible ebook and audiobook licensing options available to libraries through Palace Marketplace, the only not-for-profit distributor of ebooks and audiobooks for libraries. (Palace Marketplace is run by DPLA in partnership with The Palace Project team at Lyrasis.) We chose to begin working on ebook distribution in 2017 because we believed that libraries would benefit from having an advocate in the marketplace who could interface with publishers and negotiate deals that would benefit libraries and patrons.

This summer I’ve given updates on our work at the ALA Annual Conference in June and at last month’s DPLA Open Board + Community Meeting. I shared a summary of where we’ve been, talked about what we are working on now, and previewed where we are headed. For the latter, we shared that DPLA would soon begin a strategic visioning process. As the summer comes to a close, I’m excited to share with you our plans for this process. 

The past week has been especially exciting and meaningful for all of us at DPLA. Last Thursday, we announced the launch of The Banned Book Club, an effort to ensure that all readers have access to the books they want to read, and soon after, the project was promoted by Barack Obama as part of a series of social media pushes calling attention to the critical importance of intellectual freedom. 

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has launched The Banned Book Club to ensure that all readers have access to the books they want to read. The Banned Book Club makes e-book versions of banned books available to readers in locations across the United States where titles have been banned. The e-books will be available to readers for free via the Palace e-reader app.