Seeking innovations from individuals, libraries, organizations, and others that could play a part in the building of a digital public library.
In May 2011, the Digital Public Library of America Steering Committee announced a Beta Sprint to seek ideas and models that demonstrate how the DPLA might index and provide access to a wide range of broadly distributed content. 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:
Three additional betas that may serve as useful additions to the DPLA’s initial technical foundation were also invited to present:
The Steering Committee is currently reviewing comments on these betas and guiding development of a working prototype for the DPLA. Successful beta sprinters have been invited to contribute to the DPLA technical development plan.
A full list of final Beta Sprint submissions, including interactive demos, is available at Beta Sprint Submissions.
More information about the Beta Sprint can be found on the DPLA wiki.
Photo: The Beta Sprint Review Panel meets at the Berkman Center in Cambridge, MA on September 19, 2011.
October 20, 2011
In advance of this week’s plenary meeting, I spoke with Carole Palmer over Skype about her team’s Beta Sprint submission, CLIR-DLF / IMLS DCC Beta Sprint.
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October 19, 2011
David Weinberger of the ShelfLife and LibraryCloud collaborative speaks with DPLA RA Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey about his team’s project.
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October 19, 2011
Martin Kalfatovic speaks about the Digital Collaboration for America’s National Collections Beta Sprint submission.
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October 19, 2011
DPLA RA Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey interviews Jason Ronallo and Tito Sierra about their featured Beta Sprint submission.
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October 17, 2011
In this interview, Vassilis Tzouvaras discusses Metadata Interoperability Services (MINT), a web-based platform that enables the aggregation of rich and diverse cultural heritage content and metadata.
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October 16, 2011
Kenny Whitebloom interviews Beta Sprint participant John Butler about government publications and linked data.
John Butler talks about his team’s Beta Sprint project, Government Publications: Enhanced Access and Discovery through Open Linked Data and Crowdsourcing
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October 14, 2011
DPLA RA Kenny Whitebloom interviews the creators of Bookworm
Ben Schmidt and Martin Camacho from the Cultural Observatory at Harvard University sat down with me earlier this week to speak about their Beta Sprint project, Bookworm.
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October 13, 2011
extraMUROS aims to make the DPLA a user-centered multimedia library without walls
Jeffrey Schnapp, faculty director of the metaLAB (at) Harvard, discusses extraMUROS, one of nine Beta Sprint projects selected for presentation at the October 21 plenary meeting.
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September 29, 2011
Nine promising projects invited to present at the DPLA plenary meeting in Washington, DC
The Beta Sprint Review Panel met on September 19, 2011; nine projects were invited to present at the DPLA plenary meeting on October 21, 2011 in Washington, DC.
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September 12, 2011
The Beta Sprinters are a diverse group of non-profits, media organizations, academic and public librarians, students, government agencies, and interested individuals throughout the United States (along with a few participants from even further afield).
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