“I have just returned from the exciting and inspirational conference ‘Creating a Blueprint for Building a National Digital Public Library.’ Held at the a Los Angeles Public Library’s (LAPL) grand Central Library, this was an opportunity for public libraries to become engaged in the creation of the ‘Digital Public Library of America’ (DPLA). This symposium was spearheaded by Martin Gomez, LAPL City Librarian, and was supported by IMLS, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, OCLC, and the LAPL Library Foundation. The DPLA represents the work of many institutions in digitizing a tremendous variety of content and envisions a future where this content and much more is freely available in all libraries and easily discoverable by all. Although public libraries have been involved in the DPLA since its inception, much of the digital content is held by academic libraries. Some public libraries, such as the New York, Boston, and Los Angeles public libraries, have rich content, but most are still challenged in developing their digital content strategies in the midst of financial limitations and just keeping their doors open.”
From Susan Hildreth’s post on UpNext: The IMLS Blog, It’s Time for a National Digital Public Library