DPLA Hydra-in-a-box to impact record availability

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a portal that delivers students, teachers, scholars, and the public to incredible resources, wherever they may be in America. It presently links over 10 million digital items. The Hydra-in-a-box initiative will dramatically increase the resources available through this valuable portal. The program is described in a blog post dated 15 April 2015 entitled, "Far-reaching “Hydra-in-a-Box” Joint Initiative Funded by IMLS."

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), Stanford University, and the DuraSpace organization are pleased to announce that their joint initiative has been awarded a $2M National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Nicknamed Hydra-in-a-Box, the project aims foster a new, national, library network through a community-based repository system, enabling discovery, interoperability and reuse of digital resources by people from this country and around the world. 

This transformative network is based on advanced repositories that not only empower local institutions with new asset management capabilities, but also interconnect their data and collections through a shared platform. 

“At the core of the Digital Public Library of America is our national network of hubs, and they need the systems envisioned by this project,” said Dan Cohen, DPLA’s executive director. “By combining contemporary technologies for aggregating, storing, enhancing, and serving cultural heritage content, we expect this new stack will be a huge boon to DPLA and to the broader digital library community. In addition, I’m thrilled that the project brings together the expertise of DuraSpace, Stanford, and DPLA.”

Many of the resources already on the DPLA are of value to genealogists. This is a good time to check out this fast growing portal service.