With expanded vaccine access, many of us have begun to conceive of what our post-Covid worlds might look like. These visions are necessarily colored by all that we have learned during the last year—from the benefits of flexible working arrangements to the urgent need to finally dismantle systemic racism in our work.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce that we are now offering an ebook creation service to libraries. This new service, provided in partnership with Digital Divide Data (DDD), gives libraries the ability to easily and affordably digitize and reformat texts to create ebooks in EPUB format from print materials that are in the public domain or for which the library owns the copyright.

Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce that we are beginning production on the publication of a new ebook, tentatively titled By the Quill of Her Pen: Black Suffragists in Their Own Words. This new DPLA-published ebook will be a collection of 20-30 letters, diary entries, and accompanying photographs and biographical information that […]

I am pleased to share that you now can find more than half a million ebooks and audiobooks from over 1,000 publishers on the newly redesigned DPLA Exchange, the only library-owned ebook and audiobook marketplace.

A Wikimedia project update, upcoming events, hub network news, and more

Under the leadership of director Michael Blackwell, St. Mary’s County Library in Maryland has been an active participant in DPLA’s ebook work. We talked with Michael about his library’s experience with SimplyE, and how it’s helped to maximize access for patrons in St. Mary’s County.

Join us on Friday, January 15, 2021, at 2 pm ET for our next Community + Open Board meeting. We’ll be hosting Reckoning with Our Pasts and Building Our Futures, a community conversation about the work to be done to live up to our common commitments to equity and inclusion in 2021 and beyond, as […]

Last week DPLA hosted our first (virtual) holiday reception. It was a risk– none of us had ever been to a virtual holiday reception before, and we weren’t sure exactly what we would do, or even if anyone would come. But with the encouragement of some of our friends (thanks, Keila!), we took that risk, and ended up with a gathering of more than 40 public librarians, college and middle school educators, technologists and funders. We were joined by DPLA founders, longtime collaborators, and people whom we only met this year. I was reminded of the value of taking risks; the collective effort that is DPLA is itself a risk. And I was struck, as I have been so many times this year, by the breadth, dedication, and resilience of the extended DPLA community. With that in mind, I wanted to reflect on some of our achievements this year.

DPLA’s Open Bookshelf is a collection of more than 8,000 free ebooks that includes a wide range of titles from classics to children’s books to textbooks, and everything in between. Anyone can get instant access—no registration required— at freebooks.dp.la or by using the free SimplyE app and choosing “Digital Public Library of America” as your […]

As we look back on the ups and downs of our own year at DPLA, we wanted to share with you some information about how the 1.5 million people who visited dp.la this year used our resources:

News emerged this week that, as part of DPLA’s work to expand access to digital materials, we have been in talks with Amazon Publishing about making their titles available to libraries through the DPLA Exchange. While these are just talks at this point, I wanted to take a moment to provide an update on this […]

All the latest news from DPLA, plus upcoming events, and more.

The Texas State Library began purchasing books from the DPLA Exchange in 2019 and now has acquired more books than any other library from DPLA.

Today, we are happy to announce the launch of a new and improved DPLA Exchange. We’ve introduced a brand new look, as well as new features to make ebook and audiobook collection development a seamless part of your library workflow

Many of us are feeling a mix of anger, rage, sadness, and fear this fall, particularly this week in the wake of Kentucky authorities’ refusal to hold to account the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor. At the Digital Public Library of America we have been reflecting on our roles and responsibilities. We were founded, 10 years ago next week, with a mission to ensure equitable access to digital knowledge, and at this moment we feel an added urgency to make certain that our deeds align with our stated aims.

All of us at DPLA send a big thank you to everyone who attended our Community + Open Board Meeting on Friday, and a special thanks to Tracie Hall, John Palfrey, and Felton Thomas for an inspiring and thought-provoking conversation about equity, access, and the future of reading. In case you missed it, a recording is now available.

The DPLA community is invited to join us for a new webinar, Collaborating for Literacy: Exploring Licensing Models that Work for Libraries, Creators, and Readers, on Thursday, July 9th from 1:30 to 2:30 pm ET.

This month, we at DPLA were thrilled to welcome 10 new members to our Curation Corps of volunteer librarians/curators: Dorothy Berry, Digital Collections Program Manager, Houghton Library, Harvard University Cynthia Bower, Former Federal/Government Docs Librarian, University of Arizona Carady DeSimone, Sunshine State Digital Network Metadata Group Michele Huie, Systems and Cataloging Librarian, Santa Clara County […]

At the beginning of April, DPLA established a 90-day plan that has and will continue to guide our work during this unprecedented time. With May already upon us, we wanted to take a moment to update you on our progress.

The entire DPLA team would like to extend our gratitude to the 100+ members of our community who joined us on Tuesday for our open board meeting. We send special thanks to Katie McCormick of Florida State University and the Sunshine State Digital Network; Mark Smith, Director and Librarian at the Texas State Library and […]