DPLA goes live today
The Digital Public Library of America goes live with two million objects at 12:00 EST (18:00 CET) on Thursday 18 April.
Celebratory launch events have been put on hold due to the terrible events at the Boston marathon, which took place right in front of the Boston Public Library, the launch venue. The DPLA's Executive Director Dan Cohen said, 'From all of us at the Digital Public Library of America, our hearts go out to those affected by the terrible events in Boston. I have been in touch with Amy Ryan, the President of the BPL, and I extended our sympathies to the BPL staff and their loved ones.' He went on to say that, 'The new DPLA site will still go live at noon ET on Thursday as planned, and we look forward to sharing the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums. I see the building of a new library as one of the greatest examples of what humans can do together to extend the light against the darkness. In due time, we will let that light shine through.'
The first content for the DPLA will come from state and regional digital archives, special collections of major university libraries and federal holdings. The DPLA says that it will 'incorporate all media types and formats including the written record - books, pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts, and digital texts - and expanding into visual and audiovisual materials in concert with existing repositories. In order to lay a solid foundation for its collections, the DPLA will begin with works in the public domain that have already been digitised and are accessible through other initiatives. Further material will be added incrementally to this basic foundation, starting with orphan works and materials that are in copyright but out-of-print.'
The DPLA and Europeana announced their collaboration in December 2011. Speaking at the time, Robert Darnton, a DPLA Steering Committee member and University Librarian at Harvard, said, 'The association between the DPLA and Europeana means that users everywhere will eventually have access to the combined riches of the two systems at a single click. The aggregated databases will include many millions of books, pamphlets, newspapers, manuscripts, images, recordings, videos, and other materials in many formats.'
Since then, the DPLA has worked closely with Europeana, adopting the Europeana Data Model, sharing metadata expertise, inspiration and lessons learned, and working to make the two digital datasets interoperable.
From 'Leaving Europe' exhibition: Peder (Peter) Martinson Øyen', Credit: FylkesFOTOarkivet i Møre og Romsdal, Norway, free access
In December 2012, as a result of collaboration with curators, content partners, project staff and others, the DPLA and Europeana launched a joint virtual exhibition - 'Leaving Europe: A new life in America'. Jointly curated by the two digital libraries, the exhibition uses photographs, manuscripts, broadsheets, paintings, letters, audio, government documents and other unique materials to chart people's journeys across the European continent and their settlement in the United States. The digital items displayed are from U.S. and European libraries, museums and archives and the accompanying narrative has been commissioned specially for the exhibition from U.S. and European experts.
Explore the DPLA
Explore 'Leaving Europe: A New Life in America' exhibition