Today is the first day of the third national plenary of the Digital Public Library of America. We’re in the Chicago Public Library where Brian Bannon has welcomed us. Brian is Chicago’s new Library Commissioner, and I am a huge fan.

John Palfrey, the chair of the DPLA, tells us that what makes him happiest about the DPLA meeting is the wide range of people who continue to work on the project. He tells us that this is the first time the DPLA has live-streamed the workstream day; tomorrow is the big public confab. (Hashtag: #dplamidwest.) JP tells us that the DPLA is working across workstreams; the meetings today are not focused on workstreams but topics.

One session will be on content. JP reminds us that Emily Gore is working fulltime on acquiring content. That session is going to talk about strategic planning, and about the digital hubs pilot project that is under development. (The hubs project apparently will give access to the Hathi Trust and Internet Archive, which means there will be books in the DPLA!) JP tells us that there are two federal funders and one not-yet-announced private funder.

The second simultaneous group is the technical workstream. Martin Kalfaltovic, SJ Klein and Jeffrey Licht.

The third is on the future of the DPLA with JP and Maureen Sullivan.

JP announces that the the DPLA non-profit org is on the way. He also congratulates PAul Courant of the Hathi Trust for the judicial decision yesterday. JP asks how we can keep the DPLA’s inclusiveness and openness even as it moves to a more formal structure.

“This is the last of the entire days to roll up your sleeves and figure out what the ‘it’ is before we launch the ‘it’ in April 2013,” JP says.

Categories: dpla, liveblog dw