DPLA: A noble but controversial effort to create a national digital library system

The DPLA initiative may not be high on law librarians' "event horizon" at the moment but it has produced a fair amount of concern and criticism in public and education library circles. In his recent LLRX article, David H. Rothman writes:

Beyond doubt, the Harvard-originated national digital library initiative is an underachiever in K-12 matters. That's merely one area where the DPLA could better serve America's libraries and their users. Some other problematic areas range from family literacy to the content creation needs of local libraries, and preservation and digital divide efforts. Ahead, while urging massive incremental funding of the DPLA despite its extremely fixable shortcomings, I'll put forth specific remedies.

See Rothman's article, The risks if the DPLA won’t create a full-strength national digital library system: Setbacks for K-12, family literacy, local libraries, preservation, digital divide efforts? for more. Highly recommended. [JH]