[BOAI] Digital Public Library of America Announces $5 Million in Funding and Collaboration with Europeana

Fri Oct 21 20:28:13 BST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rebekah Heacock <rheacock at cyber.law.harvard.edu>
Date: Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 9:01 AM
Subject: [berkmanfriends] Fwd: Digital Public Library of America Announces
$5 Million in Funding and Collaboration with Europeana
To: berkmanfriends at eon.law.harvard.edu

Hi all,

I wanted to make sure you'd seen the good news about the Digital Public
Library of America project -- we announced $5 million in funding from
Sloan/Arcadia and a new partnership with Europeana during our meeting at the
National Archives in DC today.

Cheers,
Rebekah

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Amar Ashar <ashar at cyber.law.harvard.edu>
Date: Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 10:58 AM
Subject: Digital Public Library of America Announces $5 Million in Funding
and Collaboration with Europeana
To: press-report-list at eon.law.harvard.edu

 Good morning,

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is pleased
to announce two exciting news items about the Digital Public Library of
America:

*[1] Sloan Foundation and Arcadia Fund Announce Funding for the Digital
Public Library of America*
The Sloan Foundation and Arcadia Fund today announced a major contribution
for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) in the form of combined $5
million in funding. The DPLA Steering Committee is leading the first
concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public
library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all.
Announcement: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7158

*[2] Digital Public Library of America and Europeana Announce Collaboration*
Two major digital library networks have reached an agreement to collaborate
in ways that will make a large part of the world’s cultural heritage
available to a large part of the world’s population.  The Digital Public
Library of America (DPLA), which will provide access to digital collections
from libraries, museums, and archives in the United States, announced today
that it will design its technical structure in a way to promote
interoperability with that of Europeana, which has developed a similar
system to link the major libraries, museums, and archives of Europe.
Announcement: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7159

The full announcements and more information can be found below and on the
Digital Public Library of America's website: http://dp.la/

And, as always, we welcome your feedback.

Amar Ashar
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University

= = =

*Sloan Foundation and Arcadia Fund Announce Funding for the Digital Public
Library of America* <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7158>

*Washington, DC*—The Sloan Foundation and Arcadia Fund today announced a
major contribution for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) in the
form of combined $5 million in funding. The DPLA Steering Committee is
leading the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale
digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record
available to all.

Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and
Peter Baldwin, Chair of the Donor Board at the Arcadia Fund, made the
announcement at the DPLA plenary meeting today in Washington, DC. The
funding—split equally between Sloan and Arcadia—will support an intense
two-year grassroots process to build a realistic and detailed workplan for a
national digital library, the development of a functional technical
prototype, and targeted content digitization efforts. Sloan has previously
committed one million dollars towards the establishment of a DPLA
Secretariat at the Berkman Center and to support the legal workstream of the
DPLA initiative by developing solutions to copyright law obstacles facing
public digital library initiatives.

“We are delighted to join with the Arcadia Fund in giving the DPLA a major
boost towards its intensive, two year effort to create an open, distributed
digital public library system,” said Weber. “This is a grand vision for a
network of comprehensive online resources, tools, and services that will
inform, educate, and empower everyone in the United States and eventually
link us with the rest of the world. But we cannot do it alone and invite
other funders to join us in this historic undertaking.”

"What Carnegie did for public libraries a century ago, the DPLA could—if
successful—accomplish for our era,” said Baldwin. “We are delighted to be
part of launching that effort."

“We are excited to begin work on the DPLA as a full‐blown, hard‐driving
initiative that promises to transform the world of libraries and the way
that we meet the information needs of communities in America,” said John
Palfrey, Chair of the DPLA Steering Committee. "We are deeply grateful to
the Sloan Foundation and the Arcadia Fund for their support."

The DPLA is a collaborative effort that relies on inputs from a diverse
range of stakeholders and community members. Those interested in getting
involved can learn more about the project at http://dp.la.

###

*About the Digital Public Library of America*
The DPLA Steering Committee is leading the first concrete steps toward the
realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the
cultural and scientific record available to all. This impact-oriented
research effort unites leaders from all types of libraries, museums, and
archives with educators, industry, and government to define the vision for a
digital library in service of the American public. The DPLA Secretariat is
located at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University;
the Steering Committee comprises library and foundation leaders across the
nation. More information can be found at http://dp.la.

*About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation*
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants for research
and education in science, technology and economic performance. A major goal
of Sloan’s program in digital information technology and the dissemination
of knowledge is to foster public access to information and knowledge for the
benefit of all. To this end, Sloan has previously supported the Library of
Congress, the Internet Archive, LYRASIS, Wikipedia, the Berkman Center for
Internet & Society, the Boston Library Consortium, and the Espresso Book
Machine. More information can be found at http://sloan.org.

*About the Arcadia Fund*
Arcadia's mission is to protect endangered culture and nature. It works to
document near extinct languages, protect rare historical archives, and to
preserve ecosystems and environments threatened with extinction. Arcadia has
been heavily involved with digitization projects as well, in conjunction
with Harvard, UCLA, the Israel National Library and the Hill Foundation.
More information can be found at http://www.arcadiafund.org.uk/.

*Contact:*
Rebekah Heacock
Project Coordinator
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
rheacock at cyber.law.harvard.edu

= = =

*
Digital Public Library of America and Europeana Announce
Collaboration*<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7159>

*Washington, DC*—Two major digital library networks have reached an
agreement to collaborate in ways that will make a large part of the world’s
cultural heritage available to a large part of the world’s population.  The
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which will provide access to
digital collections from libraries, museums, and archives in the United
States, announced today that it will design its technical structure in a way
to promote interoperability with that of Europeana, which has developed a
similar system to link the major libraries, museums, and archives of
Europe.

Robert Darnton, a DPLA Steering Committee member and University Librarian at
Harvard, said, “The association between the DPLA and Europeana means that
users everywhere will eventually have access to the combined riches of the
two systems at a single click. The aggregated databases will include many
millions of books, pamphlets, newspapers, manuscripts, images, recordings,
videos, and other materials in many formats.”

Jill Cousins, Executive Director of Europeana, welcomed the agreement,
saying that “Europeana was designed to be open and interoperable, and to be
able to collaborate with the DPLA is a validation of that aim. By this
combined effort on two continents, Europeana and the DPLA hope to promote
the creation of a global network with partners from around the world.”

Another outcome of this collaboration will be a virtual exhibition about the
migration of Europeans to America. The DPLA and Europeana will demonstrate
the potential of their combined collections by digitizing and making freely
available material about the journey from the Old World to the New. This
pilot project will include text and images about the experience of the
uprooted as they abandoned their homes to seek a new life thousands of miles
across a treacherous ocean. Letters, photographs, and official records open
up unfamiliar views into the harsh world inhabited by Europeans from the
shtetl communities of Russia to the peasant villages of Ireland. And equally
vivid testimonies illustrate the culture shock and hard lot of the
immigrants after their arrival. Everyone in the United States, including
Amerindians, descends from immigrants, and nearly everyone in Europe has
some connection with migration, either within Europe itself or across the
ocean. All will be invited to stroll digitally through this rich exhibition.

*A Statement of Common Principles: DPLA-Europeana*
The Digital Public Library of America and Europeana share a common goal: to
make the riches of libraries, museums, and archives available, free of
charge, to everyone in the world. They will be guided in this mission by the
following principles.

   1. They will make their systems and data interoperable to the greatest
   possible extent.
   2. They will promote open access to the greatest possible extent through
   joint existing and new policies concerning content, data, and metadata.
   3. They will collaborate regularly in developing specific aspects of
   their systems, beginning with:
      - an interoperable data model
      - a shared source code
      - cooperative collection building.

*About the Digital Public Library of America*
The DPLA Steering Committee is leading the first concrete steps toward the
realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the
cultural and scientific record available to all. This impact-oriented
research effort unites leaders from all types of libraries, museums, and
archives with educators, industry, and government to define the vision for a
digital library in service of the American public. The DPLA Secretariat is
located at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University;
the Steering Committee comprises library and foundation leaders across the
nation. More information can be found at http://dp.la.

*About Europeana*
Europeana brings together the digitized content of Europe’s galleries,
libraries, museums, archives and audiovisual collections. Currently
Europeana gives integrated access to 20 million books, films, paintings,
museum objects and archival documents from some 1500 content providers. The
content is drawn from every European member state and the interface is in 27
European languages. Europeana receives its main funding from the European
Commission. More information can be found at http://www.europeana.eu/portal/
.

*Contact:*
Rebekah Heacock
Project Coordinator
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
rheacock at cyber.law.harvard.edu

Jonathan Purday
Senior Communications Advisor
Europeana
jonathan.purday at bl.uk

****
To change your Berkman Center subscriptions, visit the following url:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/signup

-- 
Rebekah Heacock
rebekahheacock.org | @rebekahredux | +1-617-384-9141 | Skype:
rebekah.heacock
Berkman Center for Internet and Society |
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/rheacock

----------
You are subscribed to the Berkman Fellows and Friends discussion list.

Mailing list options: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/info/berkmanfriends
Mailing list members:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/review/berkmanfriends

Please mind that emails sent through this list are considered public unless
otherwise noted.

-- 
*Carolina Rossini*
Senior Fellow at GPOPAI
University of Sao Paulo
http://www.gpopai.usp.br/
and
Coordinator: OER-Brazil/REA-Brasil
www.rea.net.br
+ 1 6176979389
*carolina.rossini at gmail.com*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/boai-forum/attachments/20111021/d18a3962/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------

****
To change your Berkman Center subscriptions, visit the following url:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/signup
-------------- next part --------------
----------
You are subscribed to the Berkman Fellows and Friends discussion list.

Mailing list options: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/info/berkmanfriends
Mailing list members: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/review/berkmanfriends

Please mind that emails sent through this list are considered public unless
otherwise noted.