The Digital Public Library of America Opens Its Doors

摘要

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA; dp.la) officially launched on April 18, 2013, after 2.5 years of development and many spirited discussions about mission, content, and design. DPLA is crisp and impressive, with marvelous content and lots of clever apps. It is surprisingly polished, given that major content and design decisions were made late in the game. As the first version of a grand project that will steadily grow in wealth of content and refinement of design, DPLA ambitiously states on its website that it "brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world." Translating this grand aspiration into an actual product has required fast-paced development by energetic teams of librarians, archivists, museum workers, and digital system designers, as well as a number of tough choices among competing models.