Auspex Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 The Digital Public Library of America goes live on April 18 & 19, 2013. LINK “The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a project to make the holdings of America’s research libraries, archives, and museums available to all Americans, and eventually to everyone in the world, online and free of charge." "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xonenine Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 (edited) "something wonderful is about to happen" Dave Bowman Edited April 13, 2013 by xonenine "Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun; so is your crocodile." Lepidus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AgrilusHunter Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 "The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library." Albert Einstein Can't thank you enough Chas! This looks awesome! "They ... savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things." -- Terry Pratchett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranha Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 DPLA sounds promising but I'm not getting the impression there is anything new here other than incorporating all of the pre-existing open-source / public domain content already available from other online initiatives into a unique platform. According to the press release: additional material will be added incrementally starting with orphan works and materials that are in copyright but out-of-print and also explore models for digital lending of in-copyright materials. Regardless of what content is eventually added, if DPLA works as advertised as a singular hub for all open-source content it will be a convenient and welcome resource for all. It will certainly be interesting to follow the progress of this ambitious project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranha Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 DPLA launched today and I'm sorry to be the bearer of disappointing news but the hype does not match the content. I attempted numerous searches for existing open content and sadly only a small fraction of the existing items turned up. The concept looks great on paper but unfortunately does not deliver any appreciable results. I won't bother with boring statistics although DPLA easily earns a 'poor' rating for paleontological content. The best open resources continue to be: archive.org, biodiversitylibrary.org, google-books and various university repositories. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Rome wasn't built in a day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranha Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Rome wasn't built in a day. Perhaps, but they have been working on this initiative and launch since 2010. Not having all of the content plugged in seems to be the most basic element that should be fully functional as it's just a simple search engine. If DPLA is not working properly now I doubt it ever will. So much for the better mousetrap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regg Cato Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 I trust that it will evolve and grow. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranha Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 The limited content probably stems from licensing limitations or restrictions imposed by the content owning institutions. Because the end user is redirected to the those owning institutions to 'view object', DPLA serves primarily as a portal to drive more unique visitor traffic. The caveat is not assuming that licensing agreements between DPLA and archive.org, biodiversitylibrary.org, etc., actually provides complete listings of those repositories by DPLA. Since these entities are all competitors this paradigm appears unlikely to shift unless a larger collective is planned for the future. At least this explanation is much more logical than a glitchy launch. I will continue to monitor new developments and provide any updates or information for TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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