We received nearly 40 final submissions to our summer 2011 Beta Sprint, an open call for code and concepts defining how the DPLA should operate. Submissions ranged widely from theoretical concepts to platforms for visual storytelling to metadata processing systems to visualization tools.
We are grateful to those who participated — government agencies, non-profit organizations, academic research teams, librarians, and inspired individuals — for the tremendous creativity and remarkable effort they contributed to this process, and we are pleased to share their submissions here for public comment.
This proposal addresses the lack of information access in Southern and Central Appalachia (SCA) rural libraries by using mixed methods to gather feedback from SCA’s rural librarians about their needs, expectations, and practices associated with the conceptualization, design, organization, and delivery of the Digital Public Library of America.
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The Library Lab proposal presents the design concept for a Library Lab, a unique way of creating a footprint for the digital library in the physical world.
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This project proposes a new organization of knowledge for public libraries which enables users to collaboratively curate and interact with digital collections.
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The objective of the Digital Registry Project is to create a comprehensive registry to undergird digital exploitation of intellectual property—for personal, educational, or commercial use.
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This project addresses the copyright issues surrounding the provision and use of digital materials.
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This Beta Sprint projects takes Mardi, Herman Melville’s largely neglected “philosophical romance,” as emblematic of the evolving and spontaneous storytelling style characteristic of both oral and digital narratives.
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The Use & Understand project aims to distinguish the DPLA from other digital libraries, by emphasizing “use & understand.” These processes and functions enable the reader to ask and answer questions of large and small sets of documents relatively easily.
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ShelfLife is intended to provide users with a rich environment for exploring the combined content of the DPLA, discovering new works, and engaging more deeply with them via social interactions
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The Proteus project proposes the development and deployment of Proteus, an infrastructure that would enable library patrons to discover and find connections within and across books, such as statistics on quotations recurring over time, what portions of books are republished, and searching the books’ contents.
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This Sprint project addresses issues of interoperability across repositories of content, suggesting ways the DPLA might transcend these obstacles.
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