Knowledge commons

Library>> Digital • The US

 
Published: Wednesday 15 May 2013

imageA photograph of one of the first hot air balloon flights; an 1833 map of the US showing an eagle “sitting atop the nation” and several accounts of the lives of the Native Americans during the 19th century. All these can now be accessed at the click of a mouse. Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), a non-profit initiative to create a large-scale public digital library, opened its virtual doors in April. DPLA has been in the works for the past two years, gathering together some 2.4 million items—books, photographs, manuscripts, arts and maps—from the country’s libraries, archives, and museums, and making them available at dp.la/ for free.

However, the main hurdle it faces is copyright—just as Google did for its plans to digitise books for Google Book Search. “Copyright is the biggest point of friction, particularly for books” Dan Cohen, executive director of the project, told The Guardian. “Everything before 1923 is in the public domain, and from 1923 on you start running into barriers,” he said. “We want authors and publishers to make money. But a vast majority of books make most of their money in the first five years... there might be ways to get more of those authors into public sphere,” Cohen said.

Subscribe to Daily Newsletter :

Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.