Digital Public Library of America

Editor's Notes

• #6: • A coalition of libraries could be created to provide most of the books readers would want. • A coalition of foundations, universities, and other nonprofit organizations could be formed to cover the costs. • A central organization could be designed to handle the problems of coordination, processing, and preservation.
• #7: Moreover, we can learn from the experience of other countries. Virtually every developed country has launched some kind of national digital library, and many developing countries are doing the same. They have worked through all sorts of problems and have arrived at viable solutions. If they have not come up with one model that fits countries of all sizes, they have demonstrated that the idea of a national digital library can be put into practice. It is not just true but tried.Here at Harvard, we have conducted a preliminary survey of the projects underway in other nations. We have even located an incipient NDL in Mongolia. The Dutch are now digitizing every Dutch book, pamphlet, and newspaper produced from 1470 to the present. President Sarkozy of France announced last November that he would make f750 million available to digitize the nation’s cultural “patrimony.” And the Japanese Diet voted 12.6 billion yen for a two-year crash program to digitize their entire national library. If the Netherlands, France, and Japan can do it, why can’t the United States?
• #12: No one has done more to push the idea of DPLA into the public consciousness than Darnton, who has written numerous articles, testified before both houses of Congress, and sought both public and private support to bring this idea into fruition.
• #22: The combination of business models and mechanisms required to support a successful effort is likely to be complicated and varied, reflecting substantial differences in the primary missions of the participating institutions. How much the effort costs will depend on both technical and organizational needs; this workstream will consider these aspects simultaneously to ensure that there is a sustainable model for the DPLA. Philanthropy will be a good starting point, but the effort must have a business model and a means of drawing on core funding from libraries and governments in order to get to scale. New models for working with publishers will be a component of this project.
• #23: The DPLA must be as broad, open, and non-partisan as possible. Suggestions that have already been raised include a federated model similar to the Internet Engineering Task Force, a lightweight coalition, a government commission, a new 501(c)(3), or a grafting the system onto a pre-existing structure, such as the Library of Congress or the American Library Association. Questions to address include how best to create coherence out of diversity by erecting one virtual library out of a multiplicity of collections and to which common practices the DPLA should adhere.
• #24: It will confront issues such as digital lending, orphan works, international works, metadata ownership, strategies for tiered access, and how to deal with vendors and materials under various kinds of restrictions. Questions to address include how best to achieve what is possible in the current copyright environment while considering a package of legal reforms — including model legislation — that will help achieve more in the future. Major issues include the doctrine of first sale in a digital era and orphan works.
• #25: This work is well underway: efforts began in May 2011 with a meeting on Linked Open Data, followed by a Beta Sprint seeking public input on potential models, which drew more than 60 statements of interest. In June, technical workshop participants drafted a set of key principles for all DPLA technical development. The workstream will determine best practices for state of the art digitization of a wide range of materials. In cooperation with the Content and Scope workstream, it will identify collections to be digitized and will determine costs of doing so at scale. Questions to address include standards, interfaces, APIs, and other technical aspects of digitized content for public usage; and how to improve digital access to books, including eBooks, and other forms of content. Major issues include how best to create a generative DPLA that will provide for the creation of as-yet-unknown forms of use and access.
• #27: In September 2011, an independent review panel appointed by the DPLA Steering Committee reviewed the betas. Based on the panel’s recommendations, the Steering Committee invited creators of the most promising betas to present their ideas during the first plenary meeting, in October 2011. These betas are:Digital Collaboration for America’s National CollectionsDLF/DCC: DPLA Beta SprintextraMUROSGovernment Publications: Enhanced Access and Discovery throughOpen Linked Data and CrowdsourcingMetadata Interoperability ServicesShelfLife and LibraryCloudThree additional betas that may serve as useful additions to the DPLA’s initial technical foundation were also invited to present:BookwormDPLA Collection Achievements & Profiles SystemWikiCite—A Universal Citation Platform