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Digital Public Library of America Plenary Meeting

October 14, 2011, 11:00 am

By Konrad Lawson

Digital Public Library of AmericaProfHacker isn’t usually a place for event announcements, but there is an exciting meeting that is taking place next week at the National Archives in Washington, DC, which I think is worth a posting here. Many of our readers may have seen mention here and there about the idea of creating a genuine digital public library for the United States, something many countries around the world have done. One of the most active advocates of this idea, and the one who has left the greatest trail of articles related to the proposal online is the historian and director of the Harvard University Library, Robert Darnton (see for example, this piece). I have watched Darnton speak about the DPLA on several occasions and I think he strikes the perfect balance between the pragmatist and an advocate for creating a library that isn’t afraid to reach for its true potential. The topic has also found mention here at the Chronicle, both in longer articles and in several postings over at the Wired Campus.

About a year ago, I was skeptical this would ever get off the ground. However, I have watched as bits and pieces of news emerge about meetings, plots, and the development of a secret network of shadowy cyber-utopian librarians. Ok, I didn’t get any specific intel on the shadowy network, but surely there must be one. Through their new website and not so shadowy mailing list, I read with excitement about the results of their recent “Beta Sprint” which invited various projects to submit code and concepts for the platform and functionality of the DPLA. Those chosen, which include an ongoing project of metaLAB (at) Harvard that I have been fortunate to get to know well in recent months (I’ll save that for another posting), will have the chance to present their ideas next week.

On October 21, at the National Archives, there will be an open meeting that brings together many of the stakeholders and interested parties. I’ll be up here in Boston for THATCamp NE and unable to attend, but I urge anyone in the DC area who is interested in being part of the conversation about this important initiative to attend. Read more about the event here, and register for the plenary meeting here.

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  • davidrothman

    I’m glad to see the forthcoming meeting promoted here. The DPLA has many good possibilities, and I especially love the Beta Sprint concept. Preliminary results are, in fact, very encouraging.

    Ideally, though, the group will be more responsive to K-12 and public library needs–so far not one K-12 educator sits on the 17-member board, not even a school librarian. Also remaining, among other issues, is the tricky matter of the “Public” in the organization’s name, which COSLA, a group of state library officials, correctly sees as a long-term threat to the branding of local public libraries.

    The DPLA, moreover, is not a true public group. While the mailing list is open, the steering committee meetings are closed. Mailing lists can’t hire people or apply for grants. I remain baffled and disappointed that a fine group like the DPLA cannot be as open as typical public library systems. In the end, given differences like this, as well as diverging patron needs on the whole, we need closely interwined but separate public and academic systems sharing a common technical organization.

    One great priority in the e-book area would be for the technical organization to work toward an infrastructure and ecosystem that would be as easy for patrons to use as Amazon’s is. In a related vein, the DPLA should care more than it does now about conventionally published books–still under copyright and not open access–residing on library servers. Such works are the majority of public library offerings in the book area. Next time you have 15 patrons ahead of you for a copy or two of a popular novel, think what a difference a genuinely public digital library system could make for typical public library patrons. Enough attention to the appropriate business model(s) for this to happen would be terrific. Same for enough time spent on mass access issues related to hardware, end user software, support of all kinds, and connectivity (in some cases through partnerships with the government, profit and nonprofit sectors). The current DPLA does not care sufficiently about digital divide issues, a huge reason why we need separare systems.

    Not to neglect the academic side, though. Or to forget the content sharing possibilities between the two systems, which could also share some board members to encourage cooperation.

    We just don’t need a “one big tent” elite dictating to public libraries with starkly different constituencies. Two systems, and balance, please! I have been writing on the national digital library issue since the 1990s; and, despite the considerable potential of the DPLA in the form typically envisioned by academics, I would prefer that it not preempt more comprehensive solutions.

    David Rothman
    LibraryCity.org
    703.370.6540
    davidrothman@pobox.com

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