Harvard Library Strategic Conversations Sponsors Program on “Building the Digital Public Library of America”

We now have the technology to create the greatest library the world has ever known, and to bring it within clicking distance of virtually every person on earth — at least everyone on the Internet.  The technology is available, but is the will and the funding?  How will this new creation affect the research of college professors or even elementary school students?  And how can it deal with the problems of copyright?

On Friday, March 2, Harvard Library Strategic Conversations will sponsor a program entitled “Building the Digital Public Library of America”.  Featured speakers, Prof. Robert Darnton and Prof. John G. Palfrey, will discuss the Digital Public Library of America project from its beginnings up to the current date.

The program will be held at 3:00 pm in the Ames Courtroom of Austin Hall, on the campus of Harvard Law School (off of Massachusetts Avenue near the underpass, across from Cambridge Common).

Professor Darnton will open the program with remarks about the beginnings of the DPLA project.  Professor Palfrey will then bring discussion up to the current date, and a question, answer and conversation period will follow.

Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, University Librarian, Harvard University, and a founder of the DPLA.  John G. Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School.  Palfrey is also the Chair of the DPLA Steering Committee.  The DPLA effort is now housed in the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.

The program is free and open to the public.  It will include a question and answer period, and light refreshments will be served.

The program is co-organized by Virginia McVarish, Lisa Junghahn, Kathleen Hunter Rutter and Donna Viscuglia.  For more information, telephone Lisa at 617-496-2123 or email Virginia at mcvarish@fas.harvard.edu.

This meeting is part of a series titled Harvard Library Strategic Conversations.  The Harvard Library Strategic Conversations planning committee is made up of volunteer members of the library community.  Our mission is to engage library colleagues in open, community-driven discussion about the future of libraries. 

http://www.law.harvard.edu/media/2012/03/02_lib.mov

Contact:
Lisa Junghahn, 617-496-2123
Virginia McVarish, mcvarish@fas.harvard.edu