{"id":7154,"date":"2013-03-05T15:40:49","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T20:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/?p=7154"},"modified":"2013-03-05T15:40:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T20:40:49","slug":"press-with-new-leader-digital-public-library-of-america-prepares-for-its-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/2013\/03\/05\/press-with-new-leader-digital-public-library-of-america-prepares-for-its-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Press: With New Leader, Digital Public Library of America Prepares for Its Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

“The long-planned\u00a0Digital Public Library of America<\/a>\u00a0is set to make its public debut on schedule next month, with a two-day\u00a0series of events,<\/a>\u00a0to be held April 18-19 at the Boston Public Library, and a new, high-profile leader at the helm. The DPLA\u00a0announced on Tuesday<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0Daniel J. Cohen,<\/a>\u00a0a leading digital-humanities scholar, will be the project\u2019s founding executive director.<\/p>\n

“Mr. Cohen comes to the project from George Mason University, where he directs theRoy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.<\/a>\u00a0In the announcement, John Palfrey, president of the DPLA\u2019s Board of Directors, praised Mr. Cohen\u2019s contributions to libraries and digital scholarship.<\/p>\n

“\u201cHe has led major open-source development projects, helped to digitize important works of culture, supported teachers and students in accessing fantastic digital materials, and written about the importance of libraries, archives, and museums in a digital age,\u201d Mr. Palfrey wrote. (Mr. Cohen was named one of\u00a0The Chronicle\u2019<\/em>s\u00a0top tech innovators<\/a>\u00a0last year.)<\/p>\n

“Mr. Cohen will move to Boston this year to assume his new duties. In an interview, he called the chance to help build the DPLA \u201cone of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.\u201d The idea of \u201ca large-scale online library is something truly special for the 21st century,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“He sketched out a vision of the DPLA as both a gatherer of information and a gateway to it. It will be \u201can important nationwide collaboration of state and regional digital libraries who will bring together all the local content and bring it upstream to this giant ocean that will be the DPLA,\u201d he said. \u201cThe DPLA, in turn, will redirect the general public and scholars and teachers\u201d to digital collections and cultural resources across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that we can bring all this content to Americans and people all across the world is tremendously compelling,\u201d Mr. Cohen said.<\/p>\n

“A prototype DPLA portal will make its debut in Boston next month, to give people a sense of what \u201cthe public-facing part of this\u201d will ultimately look like, according to the new executive director. Behind the scenes, an open interface will allow software developers to build on the DPLA platform.<\/p>\n

“Mr. Cohen said he intended to make advocating for greater public access to information a key part of his new job. \u201cRight now we can see many of the ways in which cultural materials are being locked up or attached with DRM [digital rights management],\u201d he said. \u201cWe really need a national organization to say, \u2018We need a strong public option.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

“What worries him most at the moment, he said, is that ordinary people, whom the DPLA is meant to serve, don\u2019t yet know anything about it. Inside this \u201cstrange bubble world\u201d of libraries and digital humanities, the DPLA has long been a subject of lively discussion. But \u201c99 percent of Americans have not heard of this before,\u201d he said. \u201cMy concern right now is one about visibility and making sure that the general public understands what the DPLA is doing and that it will not be a replacement for public libraries.\u201d<\/p>\n

“In Mr. Cohen\u2019s view, the DPLA will not supersede those libraries but build on their mission of putting information in the hands of the public. \u201cOne of the great things about libraries is that they are open for all,\u201d Mr. Cohen said. \u201cWe want to strengthen what public libraries already do in a digital age.\u201d ”<\/p>\n

\u00a0From Jennifer Howard’s article for<\/em> The Chronicle of Higher Education,\u00a0With New Leader, Digital Public Library of America Prepares for Its Debut<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The long-planned\u00a0Digital Public Library of America\u00a0is set to make its public debut on schedule next month, with a two-day\u00a0series of events,\u00a0to be held April 18-19 at the Boston Public Library, and a new, high-profile leader at the helm. The DPLA\u00a0announced on Tuesday\u00a0that\u00a0Daniel J. Cohen,\u00a0a leading digital-humanities scholar, will be the project\u2019s founding executive director. “Mr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5324,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1919],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7155,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7154\/revisions\/7155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dplaalpha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}