“The DPLA, its leaders say, will place the resources of top research libraries in the world in the pocket of every American. They foresee a time when some of the most scarce books are easily accessible to “independent scholars” on their home desktops and smart phones.”
“For those looking to learn more about this project or just to read an interesting debate on the role of massive digital libraries, the Library Journal has posted a Point-Counterpoint consisting of David Rothman who believes that there should be at least two versions of the DPLA”
“We need a mechanism to start building, in an iterative fashion … on open-source code base, with metadata that is as open as we can make it, the materials openly available, and always ‘free to all’.”
“Essentially, the thought is that the front-end of a digital collection no longer needs to be intrinsically tied to the back-end. Archives can select, acquire, and preserve objects, while libraries/museums can handle discovery and access, creating overlapping, dynamic collections that pull objects from archives.”
“Based on following the listserv, there has been a lot of energy, which can sometimes seem to be more heat than light, invested in the determination of the definition of each individual word in that name–Digital, Public, Library, and I swear, sometimes even America.”
“The Digital Public Library of America has some pretty big supporters examining the possibility of creating a digitized library for the United States, while Europeana, backed by the European Commission, provides a portal to 15 million digital works from institutions in many EU member states.”
From Nate Hill: “I’m writing about all of this here because I think the grand, idealistic, unifying schemes of Neurath can be informative in the design process for the Digital Public Library of America.”
“The Digital Public Library of America initiative, led by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, has been gaining steam and has elicited a lively debate on the DPLA’s discussion listserv about how any such institution should be constituted.”
From David Rothman: “I myself am very open to a compromise on forking. The DPLA could agree to do the fork in X number of months and meanwhile be more open about its activities, especially in regard to the Steering Committee and other gatherings, both the in-person and virtual varieties.”
“And with this thought, who better to take on the role of patron of our DPLA then Benjamin Franklin? We’re all familiar with the quote attributed him at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, ‘We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.'”
