“According to Pamela Samuelson, professor of law and information management at the University of California, Berkeley, the issue is not whether the DPLA would serve a great purpose. The crux of the matter is that in order to make virtual books available, a digital copy of the original must first be made, which in plain language violates copyright law.”
“Unlike Google’s plan to purchase copyright from publishers, authors and libraries, DPLA, as an online extension from existing an library, seems much closer to an evolution of traditional modes of access to libraries and their material.”
“The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University announced Dec. 13, 2010, that it would host a research and planning initiative for a Digital Public Library of America.”
“The proposed Digital Public Library of America will serve as an open online collection of digitized books and texts that project leaders hope could one day incorporate every volume ever published.”
“Creation of the Digital Public Library of America would be a notable step forward in keeping with that honorable tradition of public access to knowledge.”
From David Rothman: “We need a good alternative to the ugly status quo. The DPLA has the names and foundation connections to help create one if it will clarify its purposes and goals, respect public and school libraries, improve diversity, and otherwise shape up and reinvent itself.”
“The project’s ambitious mission, recently described in a four-page memorandum, is to ‘make the cultural and scientific heritage of humanity available, free of charge, to all.”
“With the recent rejection of the Google Books settlement and the building of momentum behind the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) initiative, in incubation just across the Charles at Harvard’s Berkman Center.”
From Lucy Bernholz: “One line in this jumped out at me – ‘Meanwhile, others are chipping away at the millions of orphans [books], trying to find rights holders and to determine which books have fallen into the public domain.'”
“Library Renewal is committed to advocate for solutions with legislators, with users, with the media, with colleagues, and with the private sector, to find a way to renew the value of the library.”
