Books meet bytes
The world of libraries is being shaken by the digital age, changing patterns of readership, information retrieval, perhaps even brain circuitry. The dance toward the digital drew archivists from around the world to Harvard on Thursday. The occasion was a two-day workshop on technology and archival processing at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. First was a look at the Digital Public Library of America, a free Internet platform that links U.S. libraries, archives, and museums. So far, viewers have access to about 6 million items, three times more than when DPLA went live just 11 months ago. A one-click link to all these books, pictures, and artifacts depends on 11 service hubs (Harvard is one) and about 1,200 smaller content suppliers in 15 states. The very idea of DPLA had been conceived in the same room where this week’s workshop was held, the main hall of the Knafel Center. In 2010, a...