Maryland Digital Collections on Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (dp.la) has increased its free online collections to 16,520,747 items. The most recent acquisition is a connection to Digital Maryland.

Every time one of these huge collections are added to the Digital Public Library of America, genealogists benefit from the included genealogical and historical data made available from this one location. Here is a quote from the DPLA Blog about the new addition.

Our collections and our partner network are growing! The collections of our newest hub, Digital Maryland, are now searchable in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) alongside millions of resources from partners across the country. The new Maryland Service Hub represents a collaborative effort between Digital Maryland, a statewide digitization program, and University System of Maryland & Affiliated Institutions (USMAI), a consortium of seventeen public colleges and universities across the state. Through the efforts of Digital Maryland and USMAI, over 83,000 new resources from public libraries, museums, historical societies, and college libraries are now available via DPLA.

Digital Maryland offers a unique and rich array of materials that speak to the distinctive history of the state, the Chesapeake region, and its people, as well as to national history and culture. Explore the development of the nation’s earliest railroads through the B&O Railroad Museum collection, dive into the life and letters of one of American literature’s most intriguing writers with Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Edgar Allan Poe collection, and learn how women took charge of Maryland’s farms during World War I in Montgomery County Historical Society’s Woman’s Land Army of America collection–and that’s just a preview!

I have been following the development of the DPLA website since its inception and as the website grows, it is fulfilling its original goal of becoming a go-to portal for online historical and genealogical research.