Calisphere: Gearing up for DPLA in April

Last year, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) welcomed the California Digital Library as a DPLA Content Hub, on behalf of the UC Libraries and with the endorsement of the Council of University Librarians.

In its role as DPLA Content Hub, CDL will be sharing metadata records from Calisphere, a website with approximately 250,000 digital primary source objects contributed by libraries, archives, and museums across the state.

Offering a single point of public access to millions of items from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States, the DPLA will afford Calisphere contributors broader visibility within a robust aggregation of digital resources for a national audience.

Over the course of the past year, we have been developing processes and a target timeframe to share Calisphere metadata records with DPLA on an automated basis.

Key information about the timeframe and process

• Early April 2015: Calisphere metadata records will be exposed through DPLA in early April. Metadata records for any new digital items added to Calisphere will also be shared with DPLA on an ongoing basis.
• No action is required on the part of Calisphere contributors: We are coordinating work with DPLA to harvest metadata records from Calisphere, for subsequent exposure through DPLA’s portal.
• DPLA will provide broad public access to the metadata records: The metadata records will be openly available and searchable on DPLA’s public website (just as they already are on Calisphere). A Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) will also be assigned to all metadata records.

For more information

You can find more specific information about the DPLA Content Hub launch — including FAQs and additional resources — on the following wiki:

https://wiki.library.ucsf.edu/display/DPLA

If you have questions about the launch or any of the processes associated with exposing metadata records to DPLA, please contact us at oacops@cdlib.org.