Digital Public Library of America

A HUB TO PRESERVE AMERICA'S DIGITAL HERITAGE

Technical Strategy

Custom Applications

Education

Their Challenge

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has the institutional backing to make the digital heritage of the United States of America available to all. With the Alfred P Sloan Foundation’s support, DPLA needed a trusted partner to make their vision a reality: to aggregate data from hundreds of US private and public institutions, reliably publish data through an API, and usefully present content on their website.

Our Approach

With proven experience of creating and developing data-intensive websites, pod designed the overall architecture, and provided technical oversight and implementation of the API and ingest engine. pod orchestrated the process of selecting and engaging the website’s frontend designer, and managed a development team to create data-driven mobile-friendly responsive layouts. We delivered an expandable solution, from start-to-finish,
on time and on budget.

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pod helped the Digital Public Library of America be well-poised to achieve its vision to continuously gather and distribute USA's heritage data from all 50 states.

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The Takeaway

dp.la launched in 2013 with over 2-million records and was listed as one of Top 50 Websites of 2013 and the American Association of School Librarians’ Best Websites for Teaching & Learning; two years later the collection grew to more than 11-million—a 550% increase—and will continue to grow exponentially; at the same time, 12 service-and-content hubs have more than doubled to 28 hubs—aggregating metadata from more than 1,600 institutions from 15 states (with more to come!). At least 30 third-party applications use the API, and many more are expected.