It’s a profound example of lack of access to libraries. It is 1926, author Richard
Wright is 18 and living in Memphis, Tenn., and, because of an article he read in the local paper, Wright is hungry to read books by the contentious H.L. Mencken. Unable to use the library because he is black, Wright takes a big risk. He asks one of the white men for whom he works if he can use his library card. His plan? To request books he wants to read by forging notes to the librarian from the white man. It’s a ruse. A dangerous ruse. Yet he’s that hungry, that ravenous, for knowledge. Thankfully, the man says yes, and from then on, Wright reads (and writes) voraciously. While, as Wright’s story exemplifies, an insatiable desire to read, explore, and learn has no boundaries, access to materials often does. Today U.S. libraries welcome people from all walks of life, regardless of skin color, religion, gender, or economic status, but the libraries themselves are not created equal. The library at Lawrence High School in Lawrence, Mass., cannot offer the same rich collections as PA’s Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL); nor does Northern Essex Community College offer what Harvard College Library does.
The Digital Public Library of America by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
But the newly launched Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) intends to alter these inequalities. By unifying access to millions of items in America’s libraries, archives, and museums and providing free access to all, it gives anyone with Internet service the ability to use materials they’d otherwise experience only if they set off on a lifelong road trip from city to city, town to town, wandering in and out of cultural institutions all day long.
The Launch
On April 18 and 19, 2013, folks from all around the United States had planned to head to Boston for the celebratory launch of the beta version of the DPLA. Two days of events were planned at the Boston Public Library, the nation’s first municipal free public library, which bears the inscription “Free to All” over its front door. After years of dreaming, planning, hosting hackathons, crowdsourcing talent and know-how, gathering volunteers, and raising funds, the DPLA—which is the brainchild and passion of many, including Head of School and DPLA Board President John Palfrey and recent Fuess Award–winner and DPLA board member Robert Darnton ’57—was going live.
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Andover | Spring 2013
But in the end, there was no fanfare. After the heartbreaking, life-changing Boston Marathon bombings on Monday, April 15, the launch events were canceled. Yes, the DPLA went live as planned on Thursday, April 18, but it did so quietly, with a single ding of a counter bell by Executive Director Dan Cohen. Yet in that quiet but powerful moment, more than two million materials from a dozen or so large and small institutions around the country, including the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. National Archives, were suddenly and universally accessible at the DPLA website. Phillips Academy also has a notable presence. “PA has been fully committed to participating in the DPLA from day one,” Elisabeth Tully, OWHL director, says. “We have, for several years, been uploading archival images to the Digital Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is one of the hubs that will be harvested by the DPLA.” A keyword search at the DPLA website for “Phillips Academy Andover” will lead to some marvelous archival materials, starting with photos of Ho Ting Liang, one of the first students from China who arrived in the 1870s; of PA students taking the K.O.A. stagecoach to Phillips Exeter for the rival football game in 1891; of Thomas