The DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) Steering Committee is leading the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. This impact-oriented research effort unites leaders from all types of libraries, museums, and archives with educators, industry, and government to define the vision for a digital library in service of the American public. Initial funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The DPLA Secretariat is located at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; the Steering Committee comprises library and foundation leaders across the nation.
HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. HathiTrust began in 2008 as a collaboration of the thirteen universities. There are now more than fifty partners in HathiTrust, and membership is open to institutions worldwide.
The Hathitrust collection includes nearly 10,000,000 digitized items, and over 2,000,000 are in the public domain, available to anyone with an internet connection.
The initial focus of the partnership has been on preserving and providing access to digitized book and journal content from the partner library collections. This includes both in copyright and public domain materials digitized by Google, the Internet Archive, and Microsoft, as well as through in-house initiatives.
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Their mission is Universal Access and Knowledge for all.
Internet Archive was founded in 1996 in San Francisco, California with the purpose of archiving the internet that was in the early stages of use. As the archive grew, their mission developed into provide digital versions of all published works. The Internet Archives is an internet library they do focus on books, and realizing not everyone has access to a library with a good collection provides universal access to digital versions of books. They have digitalized hundreds of thousands of books that can be barrowed through their Open Library site. Since many people struggle with physical books, such as those with print disabilities, their mission has incorporated service to this population though a curated collection on their Open Library site. Since the internet has grown and incorporated other forms of digital, such as video, audio, and even software, the Internet archive has created collections specific to each of those mediums. These efforts continue to aid researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public on a global scale.