Tag Archives: David Rothman

WaPo article on e-book crunch at public libraries is must-read for DPLA Tech Aspects Workstream members and others

Both at LibraryJournal.com and LibraryCity.org, I’ve reminded the Digital Public Library of America that it needs to serve public library users well, not just the academic variety. That’s been my goal since the early 1990s when I first proposed a national digital library system well integrated with local schools and public libraries. Nowadays I actually [...]

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On Robert Frost, fences, and electrons: Why we need two separate digital library systems for academics and the rest of America—and content exchanges and other neighborliness

Update: A related article has appeared at LibraryJournal.com. In Mending Wall, a 1914 poem blessedly in the public domain, Robert Frost gives us a classic dictum for literature and life, and maybe for inter-organizational politics in particular: “Good fences make good neighbors.” On the whole Frost is anti-fence. But he understands his neighbor’s side; what’s [...]

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DPLA still clinging to ‘Public’ in name—despite risks to the franchise and branding of America’s public libraries

When is a library truly “public” in the traditional American sense, the one on which thousands of genuinely public libraries have built their branding? Should the Digital Public Library of America protect public libraries’ franchise and branding by dropping the “Public” from the DPLA’s name? Most emphatically. And along the way, the DPLA should reorganize [...]

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A national digital library system for George Roper in McAllen, Texas, please–not just the American elite—and don’t write off conservatives

They called Mount Vernon “the Hoods’ High School” at one time, and fittingly this white-cupolaed brick building sat on Route 1 in Fairfax County, Virginia, just across from a police station with an overgrown radio tower. Melvin Bowman Landes, an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren, was principal, and every spring, he would [...]

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Any first-rate Mongolian translators—for my Chronicle essay on the digital library issue?

An IT staffer with the Ulaanbaatar Public Library in in the capital of Mongolia is looking for a translator for my Chronicle essay on the need for a well-stocked national digital library system for the United States. Efforts are already underway to digitize Mongolian documents. Anyone able to help with a first-rate translation of the [...]

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My Chronicle of Higher Education essay: ‘It’s Time for a National Digital-Library System. But it can’t serve only elites’

Update: Gary Price’s INFOdocket post on the Chronicle essay Hello to the Chronicle of Higher Education readers dropping by—in the wake of my essay, It’s time for a National Digital-Library System. But it can’t serve only elites. John Palfrey, head of the steering committee for the valuable Digital Public Library of America initiative at Harvard’s [...]

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Digital library race: Education, ‘October Sky,’ and the Sputnik factor

Digital library race ahead? On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik—setting off the space race. Most of the action, though, happened back on Planet Earth. American scientists and politicians saw Russia’s triumph as a sign of a less-than-perfect educational system in the U.S. Why weren’t we first? The movie October Sky, although filmed decades [...]

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