This guest post was written by Laura Wrubel, a 2015 DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grant awardee. These grants provided active DLF community contributors with funding to participate in DPLAfest 2015 in Indianapolis this past April. In this post, Laura recounts her experiences at the fest.

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.

DPLAfest 2015 was one for the history books! Bringing together more than 300 people from across the country (and world!), this year’s DPLAfest was two-days worth of excellent conversations, workshops, networking, hacking, and more. Missed the action, or just looking for a one-stop summary of the event? Look no further — this post contains all media, outputs, and other materials associated with the second annual DPLAfest in Indianapolis.

On the second anniversary of the Digital Public Library of America’s launch, DPLA announced a number of new partnerships, initiatives, and milestones that highlight its rapid growth, and prepare it to have an even larger impact in the years ahead. At DPLAfest 2015 in Indianapolis, hundreds of people from DPLA’s expanding community gathered to discuss DPLA’s present and future.

DPLAFest attendees encourage their fellow DPLAFest participants to support LGBTQ youth in Indiana by contributing to a crowd funding campaign for Indiana Youth Group.

There’s lots to do in the Indianapolis area during DPLAfest. Here is just a sampling of some of the excellent options.

The DPLA Technical Advisory Committee will lead an open committee call on Wednesday, April 8 at 2:00 PM Eastern. To register, complete the short registration form available here.

Join us for a two-day hackathon during DPLAfest 2015 (Indianapolis, April 17-18) to collaborate with members of the DPLA community and build something awesome with our API. A hackathon is a concentrated period of time for creative people to come together and make something new. In their excellent hackathon planning guide, DPLA community reps Chad Nelson and Nabil Kashyap described a hackathon as “an alternative space–outside of day-to-day assignments, project management procedures, and decision-making processes–to think differently about a problem, a tool, a dataset, or even an institution.”

The DPLAFest schedule is packed with interesting sessions–everything from Ebooks, to project management, to digitization, and education, has a space in the lineup. A set of those programs is related to the DPLA Hubs and the work that they do. In addition to showcasing the incredible work being done by institutions that are part of the DPLA Hub network, it’s a great way for attendees from aspiring Hubs to find out more about the application process. Here are some Hub Highlights from this year’s fest:

In my social media feeds yesterday, I saw some friends and acquaintances say that they were reconsidering their attendance at DPLAfest, scheduled to be held in Indianapolis, IN, April 17-18, in light of the recent signing of SEA 101, or the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” into law by Governor Pence of Indiana. I must admit that as an openly gay employee at DPLA, I had an immediate and strong negative reaction. I was unhappy about my organization spending money in a place that would allow businesses not to serve me simply because I am gay. However, after more thought and a night of sleep, I have come to a different conclusion. The passing of this law should make us all want to attend DPLAfest even more than we might have before.

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2015 DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grants. The DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grants is the first of a series of collaborations between CLIR/DLF and the Digital Public Library of America. It is our belief that the key to sustainability of large-scale national efforts require robust community support. Connecting DPLA’s work to the energetic and talented DLF community is a positive way to increase serendipitous collaboration around this shared digital platform.

The DPLA Board of Directors will hold an open call on Monday, March 16, at 3:00 PM Eastern. Agenda and dial-in information is included below.

The agenda for DPLAfest 2015 is now available! Featuring dozens of sessions across two days, DPLAfest 2015, taking place on April 17-18, 2015 in Indianapolis, will bring together hundreds from across the cultural heritage sector to discuss everything from technology and metadata, to (e)books, law, genealogy, and education.

The DPLA Board of Directors’ Governance Committee will hold a conference call on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 1:00 PM Eastern. The call is open to the public.

Code4lib 2015 was held last week from February 9-12, 2015 in Portland, Oregon. The Code4lib conferences have grown in the last ten years, both in terms of size and scope of topics. This growth is particularly impressive when you consider that much of the work of organizing the conference falls upon a circulating group of volunteers, with additional organizational support from organizations like the Digital Library Federation. It has become clear to me that the Code4lib community is interested in ensuring that it can develop and support compelling and useful conferences for everyone who chooses to participate.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is excited to work with the Digital Library Federation (DLF) program of the Council on Library and Information Resources to offer DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grants. The purpose of these grants is to extend the opportunity to attend DPLAfest 2015 to four DLF community members. Successful applicants should be able to envision and articulate a connection between the DLF community and the work of DPLA.

Code4Lib is an annual, volunteer-organized conference focused on the intersection of technology and cultural heritage. DPLA is participating heavily in Code4Lib 2015, taking place on February 9 – 12 in Portland, Oregon. Here’s a handy guide detailing some of the key places they’ll be and how you can connect with them.

Thanks to all of you who attended our webinar. We had a great turnout and hope you found it interesting and informative. As promised, you can now find the video for our recent Metadata Aggregation webinar below or over at our Vimeo account. Links to download each presenter’s slides are included in this post as well. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to get to all of the questions that came up during the webinar. However, our presenters agreed to answer a few more in writing for our blog. You can find them below in the Extended Q&A section.

In terms of copyright, 2014 was a big year for libraries. The highlights were the release of decisions in two major copyright cases on appeal, largely in favor of library uses and affirming the applicability of fair use to certain aspects of digitization. Other developments, such as the release of a new code of best practices in fair use of collections containing orphan works, have created opportunities for libraries and other memory institutions to make further progress on addressing copyright obstacles to digital access to their collections. Before the first open committee call of the year for the DPLA Legal Committee (which is later today at 2:00pm Eastern), now is a good time for a short recap what we’ve seen over the last year and what we can expect in 2015.

Registration for DPLAfest 2015 is now open! DPLAfest brings together the full range of the cultural heritage sector to discuss everything from technology and development, to content, law, and education. DPLAfest will appeal to librarians, archivists, museum professionals, developers and technologists, publishers and authors, teachers and students, and members of the public alike who are interested in an engaging mix of interactive workshops, hackathons, engaging discussions with community leaders and practitioners, fun events, and so much more.