digital public library of america

What, Where, Who, Why, How?

Pizza and the DPLA

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Copyright?

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And open access….

Some basic questions:

• What is the DPLA?• Where is it located?• Who is this?• Why should you be interested?• How does it work?

What is the DPLA?

• Officially, the DPLA is “an open, distributed network of comprehensive online resources that [draws] on the nation’s living heritage from libraries, universities, archives and museums in order to educate , informa, and empower everyone on current and future generations”. So, it’s not a place but a pointer.

• Unoffically – it’s really cool! Here’s why I think so…

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• The DPLA is essentially a single point of entry for a hub of information

• It’s an easy on-ramp for smaller organizations• The DPLA contains aggregated metadata - not

the actual online items. Those remain at their original location.

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Where and who?• People, places…

How is it paid for? - Private sources include the Sloan Foundation (which provided the initial planning grant, the first large grant award of $2.5 million,the Arcadia

Fund (which matched Sloan with another $2.5 million), the Soros Foundation’s Open Society Institute, the Mellon Foundation and, most recently, the Knight Foundation (which has just provided $1 million to support the new service and content hubs in several of Knight’s core

communities). Public agencies include the National Endowment for the Humanities (which has provided two grants, totaling more than $1 million)

and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

When did it go live? -

April 18, 2013.

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Why should be you be interested?

• Because…the DPLA is great at providing context, pulling together strands of our history and cultural heritage, and organizing those strands into one tapestry of common knowledge. Contextualizing history, as told through the primary source documents like government documents and images, is, in my mind, the #1 thing that DPLA does.

• And what good is a collection that no one uses?

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How does it work?

• Through cooperation and collaboration

A PORTAL FOR DISCOVERYA PLATFORM TO BUILD

UPONA STRONG PUBLIC OPTION

Remember the 3P’s:

A PORTAL FOR DISCOVERY

EXPLORE THROUGH TIME

BROWSE BY PLACE

BROWSE BY VIRTUAL BOOKSHELF

EXPLORE CURATED EXHIBITS

SAVE SEARCHES, CREATE LISTS

WHERE DOES THE CONTENT

COME FROM?

18 Hubs and growing

National network of partners

CONTENT AND SERVICE HUBS

CONTENT HUBS

SERVICE HUBS

PONDS --> LAKES --> OCEAN

A PLATFORM TO BUILD UPON

THE API: ACCESS TO MILLIONS OF ITEMS, FOR ANY

PURPOSE

OpenPics

INNOVATIVE APPS

Works great on phones

and tablets!

CULTURE COLLAGE

FREE DATA

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Uh, what’s a json file?…

• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate.

geonames.org/4901594

ENHANCED DATA

A STRONG PUBLIC OPTION

NATIONAL NETWORK, LOCAL IMPACT,GLOBAL REACH

The Context

• Lots of cultural heritage content is already available online, and more content is coming online every day.

The Problem

• Unfortunately, much of this distributed content is poorly discoverable and underutilized by the general public.

• That is to say, what good is a collection if no one knows about it or uses it?

The Proposal

• Build something like a LinkedIn profile for every special library, archive, and museum collection in the country.

• A platform that simplifies cross-collection aggregation and interoperability.

Because after all,

Summary

• DPLA is a networking platform that helps cultural organizations maximize the discovery and use of their content.

A group of librarians in the Kaaterskill (Catskill Mountains, New York),1913. F. W. Faxon. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. AmericanLibrary Association Archives

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http://dp.la/timeline

GET INVOLVEDo Creating and Sharing List on DPLA Portalo Discussion Forumso Eventso APIo Community of Developerso Apply to become a Community Repo Donateo Be a partner

Locally…• Empire State Digital Network (New York)… the ESDN is

the first service hub to be created explicitly as a means for sharing New York’s rich digital cultural heritage with the DPLA. The Network will be administered by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) in collaboration with eight allied regional library councils collectively working as NY3Rs Association.This includes the RRLC.

• Together, they will provide the necessary personnel and technological infrastructure needed to contribute digital resources from hundreds of New York’s libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage institutions to the Digital Public Library of America.

An example of PondsStreamsOceans

• Which is a fancy way of saying that members of the NewYorkHeritage.org site will be members of the ESDN and thus in the DPLA.

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Further information?

• Who are local members?• Who do you ask for detailed information - how

to join, costs involved expectations, etc?• Frances Andreu - at the RRLC• Experiences as a volunteer cataloging

metadata and scanning - Larry Naukam

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• Questions? Lookups? Can you see it in action?