DPLA's harvesting from Calisphere has been paused since 2024, while the DPLA program identified and transitioned to a new organizational home. In September 2026, Cleveland Public Library assumed operations of DPLA's cultural heritage program's technical infrastructure and administration. In 2027, the new organizational home will be changing the name of the cultural heritage program; the new name is yet to be determined. We also anticipate changes to the regional Hubs membership, harvesting, service model, and website address. Once the program transition is complete and these changes are in place, we will be better positioned to evaluate the possibility of re-establishing a harvesting pipeline in consultation with Cleveland Public Library.

In addition to automatic sharing of your Calisphere collections with DPLA, you have the option to further share collections in DPLA with Wikimedia Commons. The Wikimedia Commons is a large and growing aggregation of freely-available content. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all Wikimedia projects -- including Wikipedia.

The Calisphere-DPLA-Wikimedia Commons Workflow and Requirements

Process-wise, this includes providing some additional information in the metadata for your objects so that they can be made available through Wikimedia Commons:

  1. A Rights Status using a RightsStatements.org or Creative Commons URI, indicating an open rights/licensing status for the item allowing for any type of re-use, including commercial.
  2. URL references to source media files, for copying through to Wikimedia Commons. Alternatively, provide a URL reference to a IIIF manifest.

Once the objects are published in Calisphere, the changes will subsequently be reflected on the DPLA website.

What Users See in Wikimedia Commons

Here is an example object in Wikimedia Commons, contributed by the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center via DPLA.

Interested in Sharing Your Collections with Wikimedia Commons?

Please contact us to find out more about sharing your collections with Wikimedia Commons, via Calisphere and DPLA. See also this video overview.