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!

The DPLA will lead an open call on Wednesday, July 15 at 2:00 PM Eastern to discuss and field questions about the DPLA Open Ebooks Initiative.

As part of the White House’s Open Ebooks initiative, DPLA is calling on librarians and other information professionals to help coordinate books for inclusion in the program to help connect children with ebooks. We are seeking motivated, engaged community members who have experience with building and organizing children and young adult book collections, who have time to spend building out the first two collections.

Washington, DC—Today President Obama announced a major new program, with the Digital Public Library of America as a core partner, that will provide children from across the country with greater access to thousands of ebooks. The initiative will include ebooks from DPLA’s extensive collection of openly available content as well as contemporary titles from publishers, which are being generously donated as part of the effort and available for free to students from low-income families. The publisher commitments include $250 million in ebook donations. DPLA’s national network of librarians will help coordinate books for inclusion in the program, and to connect to children and libraries across America.

Through generous funding of the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, the Digital Public Library of America convened a two-day working meeting comprised of a diverse group of stakeholders to understand the current ecosystem for ebooks and unbundle pieces of this ecosystem to address the challenges ebooks present for libraries.

The Digital Public Library of America and HathiTrust have had a strong relationship since DPLA’s inception in 2013. As part of our ongoing collaboration to host and make digitized books widely available, we are now working to see how we can provide our services to exciting new initiatives that bring ebooks to everyone.

At the DPLA, we are particularly enthusiastic about the role that our large and expanding national network of hubs can play. Many of our service hubs have already scanned books from their regions, and are generously sharing them through DPLA. Public domain works are being aggregated by content hubs such as HathiTrust, with more coming online every month. It is clear that we can bring these threads together to create a richer, broader tapestry of ebooks for readers of all ages and interests.

At its DPLAfest–taking place on October 24-25 in Boston—the Digital Public Library of America introduced a new way to browse over a million online books it has added to its collection. DPLA Bookshelf lets the user scroll a visual representation of a bookshelf that provides all the instantaneous power the digital world provides.

We recently spoke with Michael Kelley, executive editor of news and features for Library Journal, about current events in the library ebook market.