Objections to the Digital Public Library of America

• Will using the term “public” in the name induce local and state governments to reduce funding for public libraries across the nation?

• Will academic libraries (and Harvard in particular) have most of the influence? Response: Although academic libraries where heavily represented in the initial steering committee, membership has grown to include public librarians, including those serving rural communities.

• How will rural communities or others with limited access benefit? Emphasis will have to be placed on increasing bandwidths nationally, and reaching communities generally which otherwise lack service.

• What materials are excluded? How can copyrighted materials which are out of print be included? 

• How will the library circumvent the onerous legal issues which prevent a large volume copyrighted material from being included? How will the library distinguish itself when most of the material not under copyright is already available on the Web?

• Can one national library meet the multifarious needs of scholarly researchers and the public?

• How will the goal be realized given fundamental disagreements among steering committee members?