The Digital Public Library Turns One and Celebrates with Big Partnerships
May 7, 2014
It is interesting that no one thought of creating a public library entirely online until last year. There are many libraries and archives that have online components to their collections, but nothing matches the sheer volume found on the Digital Public Library of America. Arstechnica reports that “Digital Public Library Of America To Add Millions Of Records To Its Archive” with six partnerships, including the California Digital Library, the Montana Memory Project, Indiana Memory Project, the US Government Printing Office, Connecticut Digital Archive, and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Also the New York Public Library will increase its catalog items in the DPLA to over one million.
The DPLA is a platform that connects digital archives and libraries through one hub. DPLA allows its users to search through all its partners’ databases through one portal, think of it as Google sans advertisements and Web site results.
“In its first year, one of the DPLA’s most important goals has been to catalog and connect to as many digital works as possible. Ars caught up with [DPLA Executive Director Dan] Cohen again this year, and he told us that the organization has made it a priority to help public libraries digitize their works using a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to advocate for putting resources online. “We are helping to train public librarians with the digital skills they will need for the twenty-first century and to participate in a large-scale digital project like DPLA,” Cohen wrote in an e-mail.
The DPLA also has several third party apps that help users take advantage of its immense wealth of knowledge. The best thing about the DPLA is that access to its items are entirely free! Researchers don’t have to worry about subscribing to a database or paying for to locate records. This is how research should be done everywhere!
Whitney Grace, May 07, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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