A good ten days ago the “Digital Public Library of America” (DPLA) went online, providing access to around 2.4 million digital copies of books, photos, handwritten documents and other documents from 12 major US libraries and institutions. Historian and Director of Harvard University Library Prof. Robert Darnton is the driving force behind the project. In a current article for “The New York Review of Books” he gives an in-depth explanation of the idea behind the DPLA. We asked him for an interview.
"The will to make our cultural heritage freely available to everyone"
L.I.S.A.: Professor Darnton, to what extent does the DPLA follow in the tradition of the Enlightenment? Would it be possible to say that the DPLA is an enlightening project for the digital age? Why?
Prof. Darnton: Enlightenment philosophers celebrated the ideal of a republic of letters, open to everyone without any national or disciplinary borders. Some of them, like Condorcet and Jefferson, considered the unrestricted communication of ideas as crucial for the flourishing of a political republic. But they had to rely on the printing press as a means of communication - and to do so at a time when most people could not read and most readers could not afford to buy books.
Today, thanks to modern technology, we can realize the dream of the Enlightenment philosophers. We have the technological capacity, the financial capability, and the will to make our cultural heritage freely available to everyone, not just in the U.S. but everywhere in the world.
That is the mission of the DPLA.