‘SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY’

DPLA is only entering the beginning phases of its execution, and members involved with the project are quick to emphasize that fact.

In September, a beta version of the web interface will go live, and DPLA will begin an 18-month implementation phase in the fall.

“My best hope is that even if it won’t turn out what we exactly expect now, it will turn out to be something extraordinary,” says David Weber, vice president of programs of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Three months before users are able to peruse the library’s collections, Darnton discusses the project with obvious practice.

But he is careful to stress that this is not Harvard’s “pet project”—rather, it is a mission in which Harvard, as the largest private library system in the world, should participate.

“Part of this is being able to share the extraordinary resources of our libraries much more broadly through digitization processes that we’ve done some of in the last decade or so,” University President Drew G. Faust says. “I think ten years from now ... sitting here, we would be astonished at what had happened.”

—Staff writer Gautam S. Kumar can be reached at gkumar@college.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Sirui Li can be reached at sli@college.harvard.edu.