Some of the country’s top research institutions have combined to launch a massive online archive.
The Digital Public Library of America began testing yesterday, promising a site with millions of materials ranging from images of George Washington to footage of Freedom Riders.
Directors of the digital library, first conceived in 2010, include officials from Harvard University and the University of Michigan, and a former executive at Google Inc. Government support includes the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
“Starting with over 2 million items . . . the Digital Public Library of America will now begin to assemble the riches of our country’s libraries, archives, and museums, and connect them with the public,” Executive Director Dan Cohen wrote on its Web site (dp.la) yesterday.
Cohen said most of the archives in the library are older works in the public domain. He said he’d like to talk with book publishers about using more recent releases, perhaps including them several years after they first come out, “once the commercial window of sales has finished.”