“The DPLA will make available tools and services to other libraries, such as open source code and a store of metadata, but content was a big part of what it hopes to offer. Palfrey said there was enormous benefit in bringing together into a usable environment all the content that has already been digitized, through projects such as the HathiTrust, Internet Archive, and Google Books.
“’I hope what we can do, in essence, is roll up access to content from lots of different projects, not recreate wheels, and in fact provide things that are really usable and helpful to libraries,’ [John Palfry] said.
“’Even setting aside the question of copyright, I think we can do much more in America to make available, in a way that people could find it and use it, … lots of content,’ Palfrey said. ‘We will over time certainly engage the issue of how could we work with publishers to provide content on a free to all basis, but …. there’s a lot that we can do before we join those issues,’ he said.
“Palfrey said the project was for U.S. libraries, although it could someday integrate with efforts elsewhere, such as Europeana.”
From Michael Kelley’s article on The Digital Shift, LJ/SLJ Ebook Summit Panelists Remind Librarians of an Old Creed: Free to All