“A national digital library makes a lot of sense. It’s surprising that a private university has to be the one to try to tackle the enormous challenge of making it a reality. There are considerable barriers that need to be dealt with before the DPLA could exist. The biggest issue by far is determining what can legally be digitized and stored in the repository. Copyright issues can present significant challenges for digital content. For example, are you allowed to digitize really cool photographs taken during World War II that have no photographer listed? Political issues present substantial barriers as well. Getting approval to get federal funding for just about anything in our current economic climate is virtually impossible. Perhaps this obstacle could be overcome since the DPLA would actually save money by getting rid of a chunk of technology spending from pretty much every library, museum, and archive.
“It seems strange that the United States doesn’t have a national digital library already. We lead the world in so many other areas, yet we are completely fragmented in the storing of our digital culture and history. Many other countries already have national digital libraries. The European Union has a pretty impressive digital repository called Europeana. Take a few moments to browse that site and you can start to visualize what our national digital library would look like.
“The DPLA would be a way to store the entire cultural heritage and history of our country in one place. It would make digital scans of historical documents, artwork, and photos accessible to everyone. It would be compatible with Europeana’s standards too. So it would essentially allow access to all digital collections in the United States and Europe all through one interface. That would be truly amazing.”
From PublicLibraries.com, National Digital Public Library of America