International gif-making competition GIF IT UP returns for the month of October. Join the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and partners Europeana, Trove (Australia), and DigitalNZ (New Zealand) to create original gif artwork, be inspired by creative reuse of cultural heritage materials, and celebrate one of the internet’s most beloved art forms.

The next DPLAfest and DPLA Network Day will take place at Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington Library Center.

Later this week, the Digital Public Library of America will be in New Orleans for the annual meeting of the American Library Association, where we will be talking about our ebook work after one year of running a successful pilot and participating in a national ebook summit. Learn more about the tools and collections we’ve built and our collaborative approach to maximizing access to ebooks.

DPLA staff are headed to the Big Easy this week for the American Library Association Annual Conference and we look forward to connecting with the broad and diverse library community. We’ll be sharing updates on our work around ebooks in four great sessions, connecting with friends and partners across the library community, exploring creative models for engagement between libraries and non-profits, and much more.

One of the core goals for the new membership program is to strengthen our partnerships and give our Hubs more of a voice within our partner network and on our work at DPLA, so we are excited to share perspectives on our recent meeting directly from some of our members. Hear from guest authors Emily Pfotenhauer, Lauren Algee, and Pamela Wright on their experiences and insights about the recent Members Meeting.

DPLA hosted our inaugural Hub Network Members Meeting on March 13-14, 2018, a gathering of representatives from our Member Hubs to map out ways that we—DPLA and our network of partners—can exchange ideas and work together to tackle common challenges, achieve shared goals, and shape the future of DPLA. We are pleased to share the happenings, ideas, and outcomes from the Members Meeting with our broad community.

This week, we’re convening our network of member organizations for an in-person gathering, a manifestation of a program we launched last fall to ensure that our work is grounded in and informed by the reality of the work of our community-based partners.

A summary report from “Past, Present, and Future of the Digital Public Library of America,” an event held at Harvard University on February 2. The event focused on the founding values of DPLA—a commitment to free, open access to knowledge for all—and how the vision for, and work of, DPLA intersects with the mandates, challenges, and opportunities facing libraries across the country in today’s media and information landscape.

The Digital Public Library of America will be at ALA Midwinter this weekend. On Saturday afternoon, Executive Director John Bracken will be sharing thoughts after two months on the job, and then will seek help in exploring some of the questions before ahead for DPLA.

In this inaugural year of the Hub Network Membership Program, we look forward to convening an in-person Members Meeting, to be held March 13-14, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Members Meeting will offer a chance for us to hear from and collaborate with our partners, as well as facilitate sharing of ideas, challenges, and resources across our national network.

The American Library Association’s 2018 Midwinter Meetings takes place in a few short weeks in Denver, Colorado and we at DPLA are excited to connect with the library community and share updates on the projects coming up at DPLA this year. Here’s a brief guide to catching up with DPLA at ALA Midwinter.

The next DPLA Board of Directors call is scheduled for Tuesday, January 9th at 1:30 PM Eastern. Agenda and dial-in information is included below. This call is open to the public, except where noted. Agenda [Public] Welcome and Introduction of Board Members and John Bracken, Executive Director – Board  Chair, Amy Ryan [Public] Update from Executive Director […]

This October, all GIF-­makers, history nuts, cultural heritage enthusiasts and lovers of the internet are invited to take part in the fourth annual GIF IT UP competition.

The next DPLA Board of Directors call is scheduled for Friday, September 15 at 3:00 PM Eastern. This call is open to the public, except where noted.

The next DPLA Board of Directors call is scheduled for Thursday, June 15 at 3:00 PM Eastern. Agenda and dial-in information is included below. This call is open to the public, except where noted. Agenda [Public] Welcome and Introduction of Board Members and Michele Kimpton, Interim Executive Director – Board  Chair, Amy Ryan [Public] Updates […]

This guest post was submitted by DPLAfest Travel Awardee Nicole Umayam.

This guest post was submitted by DPLAfest Travel Awardee Valerie Hawkins. Follow Valerie on Twitter at @LibrariesVal.

This guest post about DPLAfest 2017 was submitted by Travel Awardee Tommy Bui.

This guest post about DPLAfest 2017 was submitted by Travel Awardee Amanda H. Davis.

From all of us at DPLA, we would like to offer our sincere thanks to all who joined us in Chicago last week for DPLAfest 2017! Whether you attended the fest or joined the conversation from afar, we deeply appreciate the contributions of each participant, presenter and volunteer. For those who couldn’t make it to Chicago (or who couldn’t be in multiple great sessions at once), we have compiled the following one-stop guide to the news, notes, media, and other materials documenting DPLAfest 2017.