Using DPLA and the Wikimedia Foundation to Increase Usage of Digitized Resources

Abstract

The Digital Public Library of America has created a process by which rights-free or openly licensed resources that have already been harvested can be copied over into Wikimedia Commons, thus creating a simple path for including those digital collections materials into Wikipedia articles. By meeting internet users where they already are, rather than relying on them to navigate to individual digital libraries, the access and usage of digital assets is dramatically increased, in particular to user groups that might otherwise not have a reason to interact with such digitized resources.