Editing National Digital Library Program

{{Short description|American digital library}}
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[[File:Discovery of the Land1.jpg|thumb|250px|Study for ''Discovery of the Land'', a mural at the Library of Congress Hispanic Division, by [[Candido Portinari]].]]

The '''National Digital Library Program''' ('''NDLP''') is a project by the United States [[Library of Congress]] to assemble a digital library of reproductions of [[primary source]] materials to support the study of the history and culture of the United States. The NDLP brought online 24 million books and documents from the Library of Congress and other research institutions.<ref>{{Cite news |last=McFadden |first=Robert D. |date=2018-11-21 |title=James H. Billington, 89, Dies; Led Library of Congress Into Digital Age |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/obituaries/james-billington-dead.html |access-date=2023-10-16 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

==History==
Begun in 1995 after a five-year pilot project, the program began digitizing selected collections of [[Library of Congress]] archival materials that chronicle the nation's history. In order to reproduce collections of books, pamphlets, motion pictures, [[manuscript]]s and sound recordings, the Library has created a range of digital entities: bitonal document images, [[grayscale]] and color pictorial images, [[digital video]] and [[digital audio|audio]], and searchable [[e-text]]s. To provide access to the reproductions, the project developed a range of descriptive elements: bibliographic records, finding aids, and introductory texts and programs, as well as [[index (publishing)|index]]ing the full texts for certain types of content.

The reproductions were produced with a variety of tools: [[image scanner]]s, [[digital camera]]s, devices that digitize audio and video, and human labor for rekeying and encoding texts. American Memory employs national-standard and well established industry-standard formats for many digital reproductions, e.g., texts encoded with [[Standard Generalized Markup Language]] (SGML) and images stored in [[Tagged Image File Format]] (TIFF) files or compressed with the [[Joint Photographic Experts Group]] (JPEG) algorithm. In other cases, the lack of well established standards has led to the use of emerging formats, e.g., [[RealAudio]] (for audio), [[QuickTime]] (for moving images), and [[MrSID]] (for maps). Technical information by types of material and by individual collections is also available on the site.<ref name="auto">National digital library program. (n.d.). Retrieved September 21, 2015, from Library of Congress website: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dli2/html/lcndlp.html</ref>

The Library received funding from Congress and private sector donations, sponsoring a three-year competition to enable institutions like libraries to digitize their U.S. history collections.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bitetto |first1=Massimiliano Di |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=caQxBQAAQBAJ&dq=National+Digital+Library+Program&pg=PA5 |title=Public Management as Corporate Social Responsibility: The Economic Bottom Line of Government |last2=Chymis |first2=Athanasios |last3=D'Anselmi |first3=Paolo |date=2014-11-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-07037-7 |language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Digital curation]]
*[[Digital library]]
*[[Digital preservation]]
*[[List of digital library projects]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
*{{LOC-general}}

==External links==
*[http://international.loc.gov Global Gateway]
*[http://www.nap.edu/books/0309071445/html/ LC 21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress]
*[http://memory.loc.gov Library of Congress, American Memory]
*[http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/index.html Library of Congress, Digital Preservation]
*[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dli2/html/lcndlp.html Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program]
*[http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/index.shtml The Library of Congress, Sustainability of Digital Formats]
*[https://www.loc.gov/webcapture/ The Library of Congress, Web Capture]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Library Of Congress National Digital Library Program}}
[[Category:Ebook suppliers]]
[[Category:American digital libraries]]
[[Category:Library of Congress|National Digital Library Program]]
[[Category:Supercomputer sites]]
[[Category:University of California, San Diego]]
[[Category:Web archiving initiatives]]