The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Board of Directors elected Joe Lucia as its new chair at its first meeting of the year last month. Lucia succeeds Felton Thomas, Jr., Executive Director and CEO of Cleveland Public Library, whose term of service ended after six years, the last three of which he served as […]

A steady bright spot this year has been DPLA’s continued work using Wikimedia to expand access to collections. Even as many institutions across the country face shifting priorities and uncertain funding, and rapidly evolving digital expectations, our work expands access to cultural heritage collections through Wikimedia platforms to continue to demonstrate the kind of broad, […]

As we shared on Monday, Dec. 8, DPLA and many of our peer institutions recently suffered an aggressive botnet attack that limited access to our search results and many of our item pages and primary source sets.  As of Tuesday afternoon on Dec. 9, all services have been restored, but may remain fragile. We continue […]

We are currently experiencing significant difficulties with access to our search results and item pages due to an aggressive botnet attack. We are actively working to identify a solution and restore full functionality. If you encounter errors or have trouble accessing specific pages, please let us know at info@dp.la. Thank you for your patience.

Since its launch in 2013, the Digital Public Library of America’s cultural heritage aggregation program has provided free and open access to millions of items from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. In this post we’ll show how the collection has grown since its launch and share key metrics for the dp.la site. […]

DPLA hosted its second roundtable October 14-15 2025 at the University of Washington Information School. In October, we convened our second roundtable in Seattle, Washington, for two days of thoughtful and forward-looking conversations exploring the role of libraries in an AI-driven world. Hosted at the University of Washington Information School, the gathering brought together librarians […]

Last month, DPLA convened our fall Open Board + Community meeting. Board president Felton Thomas opened with a powerful reflection: libraries have a role to play in defending the truth. That sense of urgency was echoed by our first presenter Chris Brown, Commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, who described the chilling effect of the […]

$145,000 regranted to advance innovation and collaboration across national DPLA network of libraries, archives, and museums This week, during our gathering with DPLA Hubs partners at Temple University’s Charles Library, we announced support for ten projects through the DPLA Network Grants Program. The projects span four focus areas (core infrastructure, emergent opportunities, AI innovation, and […]

Last week, we kicked off our Roundtable Series with a powerful gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Over two days, we convened members of the library and archives community, funders, and county officials for deep, forward-looking conversations on how we can preserve our shared histories and experiences in the face of today’s challenges.  Together, we explored […]

Announcement: We are thrilled to share that Tania Ríos Marrero is our new Engagement Coordinator. Tania is a librarian and community facilitator with a decade of experience in libraries and archives. Her most recent role is project coordinator for the Digital Library of the Caribbean at the University of Florida, where she led initiatives in […]

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is excited to share that our Board of Directors is commencing an open call for nominations for individuals to serve three-year terms as DPLA directors.  The DPLA Board of Directors establishes and upholds the organization’s mission and vision, establishes policies and procedures related to the organization’s governance, and […]

Preservation of digital cultural heritage has never been more pressing. With ongoing staffing and budget cuts in our field—plus many other kinds of threats, from natural disasters to technical disruptions—libraries and archives are facing increased risks to the long-term viability of our digital collections. After exploring decentralized storage approaches, last year we received funding from […]

DPLA’s Wikimedia Working Group is proud to announce Wikipedia for Cultural Heritage, a workshop series that will introduce Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons to cultural heritage institutions. The series will take place on the second Thursday of each month, at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. The goals: Encourage DPLA/Wikimedia Commons contributors to do more with their […]

The Palace Project, an audio and ebook app for libraries, moves to nonprofit Lyrasis The Palace Project — a mobile app and digital platform that provides ebooks and audiobooks to more than 700 libraries  — is changing ownership. Co-created by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Lyrasis in 2020, the app will now […]

Like many of you, we’ve been struggling these last few months as our institutions and our communities come under attack. There’s no playbook for the kinds of disruption, deletion, and destruction that we’ve been experiencing. To help find a path forward, I’ve had conversations with dozens of colleagues across the country over the last month. […]

I’m happy to share that DPLA has a new member of the team: Michelle Rago, formally of 18F.  As our new Engagement Coordinator, Michelle will be working with us part time from Washington, D.C., to increase the visibility and use of the material at dp.la.  Michelle joins DPLA after 25 years working for the federal […]

This year’s Independent Publisher & Librarian Forum (affectionately known as IndieLib), was a resounding success! Hosted by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and the Independent Publishers Caucus (IPC) and held at New York University last week, IndieLib 2025 convened librarians, independent publishers, and thought leaders from across the country for a unique opportunity […]

The Outreach and Assessment working group is conducting a survey to gather information about which Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMS) are in use for institutions within DPLA. With this information, we aim to connect institutions together so they can share insights, challenges, and best practices regarding their own digital collections and other repository platforms and how […]

Dear friends of DPLA,  Last month, we held our first DPLA Open Board meeting of 2025. As we were preparing for the call, we were alarmed by social media reports that friends and colleagues at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) were being sent home ahead of the agency’s elimination. It was a devastating day for […]

Reflections on the latest DPLA LibLearnX 2025 Session This is a guest post authored by DPLA Curation Corps lead, Jaena Rae Cabrera. As librarians, we’ve been alarmed by the rise in book bans in recent years. Book bans seek to silence black, brown and LGBTQIA+ authors and erase stories that educate and empathize with other […]