Digital Public Library of America: Some announcements and reviews (updated)

Probably the best third-party article on the Digital Public Library of America appeared in Arts Technica, with the not-so-good title of "The Digital Public Library of America: adding Gravitas to your Internet Search."

In the coming years, the DPLA has a few evident goals: getting contemporary works into the database, working with state and regional libraries across the nation to bring their archives under the umbrella of the DPLA, and making sure all of the amassed metadata is clear and concise so that others can use it. The organization currently offers access to items like daguerreotypes, portraits, older scientific articles, pamphlets, and old books. These items have been donated by other institutions and are hosted on those sites. Currently, when you search at the DPLA website, you’re taken to, say, the archive hosted by the Biodiversity Heritage Library or the Uintah County Library in Utah. That second archive might represent the more interesting goal of the DPLA: to get small town libraries and archives online and linked up to the DPLA API. Of the 42 state and regional libraries that have digitized all or part of their archives, Cohen says seven are currently searchable through the DPLA site. “I’m going to be trying to get the next 35 to work with us,” [Dan] Cohen told Ars.

DPLA Launch event canceled but DPLA to go live on Thursday April 18

The Digital Public Library of America's launch event, to have taken place at the Boston Public Library where a bomb exploded on Monday during the Boston Marathon, has been canceled. The DPLA will still go live on Thursday April 18. Article here. The DPLA will have a larger event in the fall which will evolve into their DPLAfest. The Library's Executive Director, Dan Cohen, is quoted "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." (h/t Inside Higher Education. Their source here.)

Dan Cohen Previews the New Digital Public Library of America at NYU

Dan Cohen, the newly named Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America, spoke at NYU's Humanities Initiative on Thursday, April 4, 2013 about the DPLA. Dan who was closely involved with the development of the scholarly tool Zotero and the exhibition tool for library and museum collections, Omeka. He will be leaving George Mason University for the DPLA and Cambridge on April 18 when the DPLA officially launches at the Boston Public Library.

Robert Darnton of Harvard University's Libraries had written in the New York Review of Books earlier this week, but it was great to hear Cohen talk about underlying concepts and infrastructure issues. He provided much more detail than Darnton did. Although people will try to tell you that the web is America's digital public library, the web in fact, cannot handle local history and archival materials which are either hard to find, scattered, poorly described or behind "gates." The DPLA will knit together widely separated library and museum resources for research, classroom and general interest. Cohen pointed to the ideal of the American public library which is open to all, never tracks your activity, and doesn't judge how you use the information it provides, whether for research, leisure or business. He noted that America's public libraries can be community centers, but they also help people start businesses, and we cannot underestimate their impact (including the financial impact) on communities.

Dan Cohen on open source scholarship

Dan Cohen tries to make the case for "open source" academic publishing on his blog. In part:

The dirty little secret about open access publishing is that despite the fact that although you may give up a line in your CV (although not necessarily), your work can be discovered much more easily by other scholars (and the general public), can be fully indexed by search engines, and can be easily linked to from other websites and social media (rather than producing the dreaded “Sorry, this is behind a paywall”).

(Postscript 4/13/2013: Cohen has been named founding Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America. Link to his talk about the DPLA.)