Future of DPLA: Executive Director Previews Presentation at LITA Forum

UPDATE 2 (4 pm)…Video Recording of John Bracken’s DPLA Presentation Now Available

UPDATE (3pm)…Comment from infoDOCKET Founder/Editor Gary Price
John Bracken’s presentation at the LITA Forum is now complete. A collaborative notes page with highlights from the talk can be found here.

Quick Comments

Overall, I was disappointed with the presentation. Why? It offered little detail/data not only about any specific plans for the immediate future of DPLA but also about where the organization is today in such areas as funding/budget, usage (growing? declining?), DPLA Exchange, marketing plan for finding new users, etc. A review with even a small amount of data would have been useful especially when trying to engage the community at large to help discuss the future. 

—
End Update
—-

In a preview, Bracken has posted an outline of some of what he’ll talk about on Medium. It’s available here.
Here’s an excerpt:

In 2019 we will grow all three of these areas:

1. Ensuring that our nation’s cultural heritage is fully accessible digitally by growing, supporting and working with our network. We will expand on what we’ve begun to more fully involve our network in collaboratively designing tools and approaches to make the digital cultural resources of our more than 3,000 place-based partners. We also will explore ways to better raise funds together.
2. Providing libraries and their users with ebook options that prioritize their needs over those of commercial platforms. We will do this by expanding on the progress we have made with the DPLA Exchange through partnerships with LYRASIS, NYPL and others.
3. Helping the field to thrive in the digital age. Among other things, this will include events like DPLAfest (which opened for registration last week), webinars and conference presentations (including upcoming staff talks at NCTE and MCN, as well as at SXSWedu and at ALA Midwinter, where we plan to walk through a new strategic plan that sets us up to continue to build on the success of our first five years.)

Direct to Full Text Post (via Medium)
DPLA Staffing
DPLA let six people go yesterday. It’s addressed in an email sent to DPLA members that was obtained by infoDOCKET. Most of this email is very similar to what’s posted on Medium. Here’s the portion about staffing:

These and other DPLA topics are being discussed on Twitter.
Again, John Bracken’s presentation begins at 1pm Central.

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Conference Presentations, Data Files, Funding, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Video Recordings