The CDL is a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Service Hub. As a Service Hub, we share any metadata record that you contribute to Calisphere with DPLA. Contributed metadata is openly available and searchable on the DPLA website, just as it is on Calisphere.

The Calisphere-DPLA Workflow

No additional work is required of you to contribute your collections to DPLA. DPLA harvests from Calisphere, much in the same way that Calisphere harvests from your digital collections system. Through 2021, DPLA is harvesting from Calisphere on a semi-annual basis (please see our Community Calendar, for upcoming re-harvest dates. Hence, the versions of your collections in Calisphere will generally be more up to date than what is reflected in DPLA.

What Users See in DPLA

DPLA works similarly to Calisphere from a user perspective. When viewing an individual item from the collection, users see the metadata record, plus a small thumbnail image for the item. DPLA then links to the item in your digital collections system. Check out this example object in DPLA, which we harvested from Los Angeles Public Library, and DPLA in turn harvested from Calisphere. Note that users are not routed through Calisphere (unless your content is hosted on the Online Archive of California or in the UC Libraries Shared DAMS).

Removing content from DPLA

What if you need to remove an item from Calisphere and DPLA (e.g., because of an error with the record, donor request, etc.)? No problem. Contact us, and we can pull the item from Calisphere and work with DPLA to also take down their version of the record.