The Digital Public Library of America Ingestion Ecosystem: Lessons Learned After One Year of Large-Scale Collaborative Metadata Aggregation

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) aggregates metadata for cultural heritage materials from 20 direct partners, or Hubs, across the United States. While the initial build-out of the DPLA’s infrastructure used a lightweight ingestion system that was ultimately pushed into production, a year’s experience has allowed DPLA and its partners to identify limitations to that system, the quality and scalability of metadata remediation and enhancement possible, and areas for collaboration and leadership across the partnership. Although improved infrastructure is needed to support aggregation at this scale and complexity, ultimately DPLA needs to balance responsibilities across the partnership and establish a strong community that shares ownership of the aggregation process.