DPLA in the Pacific Northwest: The Orbis Cascade Alliance Case

Authors

  • Mark Dahl Aubrey R. Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark
  • Zachariah Selley Lewis & Clark College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7710/1093-7374.1959

Keywords:

Oregon, Oregon libraries, academic library, libraries, librarians, northwest, information science, information literacy, social media, writing, library trends, books, donors, library funding, Oregon library association, quarterly, Oregon library association quarterly, American library association, ala, ola, reading, library success, success, evolving roles, OSU, Oregon state, University, web services, public, new discipline, changes in libraries, career, careers, library careers, library career, professional journal, scholarly, academic, circulation, Portland, Multnomah County Library, innovative, inventive, solution, oregon librarians, librarian, political, politics, political action, association, civics, civic education, inspiring, engagement, role, participation, skills, create, creating, resources, develop, source, evaluate, evaluation, evaluating, University of Oregon, UO, learn, learned, program, job, for, a, an, the, leadership, institute, liola, digital repositories, data harvests, data, digital public library of america, mountain west digital library, archives, archive, archivist, history, photograph, osu, oregon state, university, southern oregon, state library of oregon, state library, harvester, newspaper, special collections, alliance, consortium, orbis cascade, archives west, dpla, mwdl, heritage, culture, cultural, navigating, collaborate, navigate, platform, National Endowment for the Humanities, Library Services and Technology Act, lsta, MARC, commision, lewis & clark college, uo, university of oregon, maureen, flanagan, battistella, mark, dahl, zachariah, selley, orbis, cascade, nwda, northwest digital archive, xcu, hub, collection, digital

Abstract

The Orbis Cascade Alliance’s journey to becoming a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Service Hub illustrates some important challenges and opportunities in the world of digital cultural heritage work. Released in 2013, DPLA brings together cultural heritage content on a national digital platform. Since 2014 the Alliance has moved towards DPLA membership as part of a broader strategy to aggregate its members’ digital cultural heritage collections and make them more discoverable. Competing strategies for making content discoverable, limited financial resources, and differences in missions between institutions have been obstacles as the Alliance has worked towards aggregated collections and DPLA membership. The DPLA has experienced recent growing pains as evidenced by a staff downsizing in November 2018 and the closing of a major Service Hub shortly thereafter. Though the Alliance membership has made extensive progress in metadata standardization and aggregation in preparation for a DPLA ingest, as of June 2019, Alliance DPLA activity is on hold until a new Program Manager for Unique and Local Content comes on board.

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Author Biographies

Mark Dahl, Aubrey R. Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark

Mark Dahl is currently director of the Aubrey R. Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. He has served in academic libraries for 20 years as a systems librarian, associate director for technical and digital services, and director. His professional interests include digital initiatives, student engagement with library resources and the liberal arts college library. He has presented and written extensively on new and emerging roles for academic libraries. In recent years, he has held leadership roles on the board and Teams of the Orbis Cascade Alliance consortium. He holds an undergraduate degree in history and journalism and master’s degrees in history and library/information science.

Zachariah Selley, Lewis & Clark College

Zachariah Selley is the Associate Head of Special Collections and College Archivist for Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He is a contributor to the Orbis Cascade Alliance as a member of the Unique and Local Content Team, and current Chair of the Archival Collection Management Standing Group. Additionally, Selley teaches in support of the archives program for the Emporia State University School of Library and Information Management. Selley holds undergraduate degrees in philosophy and music history, and a master’s degree in library and information science.

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Published

2019-08-01

How to Cite

Dahl, M., & Selley, Z. (2019). DPLA in the Pacific Northwest: The Orbis Cascade Alliance Case. OLA Quarterly, 24(4), 13–20. https://doi.org/10.7710/1093-7374.1959