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Staff

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Franky Abbott

FrankyAbbottheadshotACLS Public Fellow, Project Manager / Email Franky
Franky Abbott is an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Public Fellow working as a project manager for the Digital Public Library of America. In this capacity, she organizes the Community Reps program, the Gates-funded Public Library Partnerships Project, and research and outreach initiatives to teachers, students, and librarians in K-12 and higher education. She has experience as a project manager in digital humanities at the University of Alabama’s Alabama Digital Humanities Center and Emory University’s Digital Scholarship Commons and digital publishing as managing editor of the open access journal, Southern Spaces. Additionally, she has worked in education research and assessment and as a K-12 classroom teacher. Franky has a PhD from Emory’s Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts in American Studies, a M.A. in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi, and a B.A. in Literature and African American Studies from Yale University.

Audrey Altman

Audrey_Headshot (1)Technology Specialist / Email Audrey
Audrey Altman is a Technology Specialist for DPLA.  She works with Director of Technology Mark Matienzo and fellow Technology Specialist Mark Breedlove to design, develop, test, integrate, support, and document user-facing applications and back-end systems; support content management policies, process, and workflows, and contribute to the development of new ones; and collaborate with stakeholders to contribute to strategic and tactical planning and implementation of content stewardship applications and technologies.  Audrey previously worked as a web developer for Digital Research and Publishing at the University of Iowa Libraries, and for the University of Iowa Digital Studio for Public Arts & Humanities.  She holds a Masters of Library and Information Science from the University of Iowa, a M.A. in American Studies from the University of Alabama and a B.A. in Theater from Albion College.

Hillary Brady

BradyBioPicResearch Assistant / Email Hillary
Hillary is a Master’s candidate in the Public Humanities program at Brown University. In her graduate work, her interest area includes digital humanities projects, archival research, writing for the web and accessibility of cultural organizations. She also recently ended a summer interning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Digital Media department. Hillary has a B.A. in Journalism and English from The University of Rhode Island.

Mark Breedlove

Technology Specialist / Email Mark
Mark Breedlove is a DPLA Technology Specialist, who designs, implements, and supports the systems behind the organization’s application programming interface (API) and datastores, in addition to the public-facing website. He is responsible for the software that moves data from DPLA’s providers to its users, by way of its open API and web front-end, and he works closely with the Director of Technology and the Content team. Before coming to DPLA, Mark was the Technical Director at See.me, a social discovery website for artists, and the American Museum of Natural History, building scientific web applications and content management systems for its Science Division.

Dan Cohen

head_shot_2Executive Director / Email Dan
Dan Cohen is the Founding Executive Director of the DPLA, where he works to further the DPLA’s mission to make the cultural and scientific heritage of humanity available, free of charge, to all. Prior to his tenure, Dan was a Professor of History and the Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. At the Center, Dan oversaw projects ranging from new publishing ventures (PressForward) to online collections (September 11 Digital Archive) to software for scholarship (the popular Zotero research tool). His books include Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web (with Roy Rosenzweig) and Equations from God: Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith. Dan was an inaugural recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies’ Digital Innovation Fellowship. In 2011 he received the Frederick G. Kilgour Award from the American Library Association for his work in digital humanities, and in 2012 he was named one of the top “tech innovators”  in academia by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Dan received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton, his master’s degree from Harvard, and his PhD from Yale.

Emily Gore

EmilyGoreheadshotDirector for Content / Email Emily
Emily Gore is the Director for Content of the Digital Public Library of America. In this role, Emily oversees the Digital Hubs Pilot Project and coordinates content workflows for DPLA. Emily came to the DPLA after working for 12 years in digital library and technology development in academic and state libraries. Most recently, Emily served as the Associate Dean for Digital Scholarship and Technology at Florida State University Libraries. Emily’s work has largely focused on building digital collection collaborations among cultural heritage institutions. Emily managed the former statewide digital library in North Carolina, NC ECHO, and co-directed the South Carolina Digital Library. Emily also served as Principal Investigator for the IMLS-funded Open Parks Grid project at Clemson University, a collaboration among the libraries, campus IT, Parks and Recreation professionals and the National Park Service. She has a Master’s degree in Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama, a BA in English/Technical Writing from Clemson University and is a 2011 graduate of the Frye Leadership Institute.

Mark A. Matienzo

Matienzo_Mark2Director of Technology / Email Mark
Mark A. Matienzo is the DPLA Director of Technology. As Director of Technology, Matienzo is responsible for the overall technology vision for the DPLA. Matienzo orchestrates the design, implementation, and improvement of the DPLA’s digital infrastructure, including user-facing applications, back-end systems, and the application programming interface (API). Matienzo also serves as the primary technical contact for outside organizations, partners, and developers. Prior to joining DPLA, Matienzo served as the Digital Archivist for Manuscripts and Archives at the Yale University Library and as the Technical Architect for the ArchivesSpace project. Matienzo has taught classes on digital preservation and digital libraries at the Drexel University College of Computing and Informatics and the Long Island University’s Palmer School of Library and Information Science. In 2012, Matienzo was the first awardee of the Emerging Leader Award of the Society of American Archivists. Before working at Yale University, Mark worked for the Digital Experience Group at The New York Public Library, the American Institute of Physics, the Smithsonian Institution, and ProQuest Information and Learning. Mark received a MSI specializing in Archives and Records Management from the University of Michigan School of Information and a BA in Philosophy from the College of Wooster.

Amy Rudersdorf

Amy_RudersdorfAssistant Director for Content / Email Amy
Amy is the DPLA Assistant Director for Content. She is responsible for digitization partnerships and related workflows, metadata normalization and shareability, and community engagement to promote the DPLA as a community resource. Amy formerly served as the director of the Digital Information Management Program at the State Library of North Carolina. Amy was a Library of Congress National Digital Stewardship Alliance coordinating committee member and an active voice in the digital preservation community. Amy has taught library graduate school courses on digital libraries and preservation (San Jose State University) and metadata (North Carolina Central University). Prior to moving to state government, Amy worked with digital collections in special collections at North Carolina State University, coordinated a digital production group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and worked with public libraries throughout Wisconsin to aid in the development and coordination of Library and Service Technology Act (LSTA) funded digitization grants.

Kenny Whitebloom

KennyWhitebloomProject Coordinator / Email Kenny
Kenny is a project coordinator at DPLA, where he organizes various types of outreach projects, including the Community Reps program and DPLAfest, research and strategic initiatives, and other operational efforts that help further DPLA’s ability to achieve its vision. He previously worked at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Kenny holds a Masters in Library and Information Science from Simmons College and a BA in History and Italian from Vassar College.

 


Read posts written by our staff

Included below are entries in our series of behind-the-scenes posts from DPLA staffers. We hope that these posts will give you additional insight into what we’re working on, how we work, and progress toward our goals.

Read More


Report from the Public Library Partnerships Project Workshops
July 31, 2014

Report from the Public Library Partnerships Project Workshops

In April 2014, after research and planning, the Public Library Partnerships Project team started to convene one-day workshops for public librarians interested in digitization. Each hub—Digital Commonwealth, Digital Library of Georgia, Minnesota Digital Library, and Mountain West Digital Library—gave a workshop in the spring. We then met as group to discuss the curriculum and make necessary changes for the later workshops. We also relied on feedback from participants in the first workshops and the survey and informal feedback they had offered about their experiences. Since that meeting, we’ve continue to give workshops: so far eight more with an additional five scheduled through the end of September.

Let’s Keep the Momentum Going
April 17, 2014

Let’s Keep the Momentum Going

It’s hard to believe that a year has already gone by since our launch last April. It’s been a whirlwind here in the Boston headquarters of DPLA, and across DPLA’s ever-expanding national network of libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage sites. The surging numbers in our collection—6.7 million items from over 1300 contributing institutions, up from 2.4 million and 500 a year ago—attest to the tremendous momentum we’ve achieved.

On the Right to Link
April 4, 2014

On the Right to Link

The U.S. Copyright Office has asked for comments on a proposed new right for copyright holders, the “making available” right, which would restrict the ability to link to content the open web. With the help of DPLA Legal Committee member Dave Hansen, Dan Cohen filed a response.

A Trip to the Nantucket Historical Association
April 2, 2014

A Trip to the Nantucket Historical Association

This is part of a series of behind-the-scenes posts from DPLA staffers. We hope that these posts will give you additional insight into what we’re working on, how we work, and progress toward our goals.

Last month I had the pleasure of traveling to the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) in Nantucket, Massachusetts for an archival site visit with the good folks from the Boston Public Library’s (BPL) digital services department and the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center. We were there to meet with NHA staff and survey the 120 year-old island historical association’s collection of historical maps…

Getting it Right on Rights: Simplifying, Harmonizing, and Maximizing the Openness of Rights in Digital Libraries around the World
March 18, 2014

Getting it Right on Rights: Simplifying, Harmonizing, and Maximizing the Openness of Rights in Digital Libraries around the World

DPLA recently submitted an entry to the Knight Foundation's News Challenge, which asks entrants to answer the question: how can we strengthen the Internet for free expression and innovation?

Read about DPLA’s entry to the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge, “Getting it Right on Rights: Simplifying, Harmonizing, and Maximizing the Openness of Rights in Digital Libraries around the World.”

10 awesome videos from DPLA’s collections
March 14, 2014

10 awesome videos from DPLA’s collections

While most DPLA users are familiar with the millions of images and texts in our collections, most may not be aware that we also have a growing assortment of some 15,000+ video records. These videos cover a tremendous range of subjects, from WWII-era public service documentaries to contemporary interviews with well-known musicians.

Promoting Interoperability: Working on Rights
March 3, 2014

Promoting Interoperability: Working on Rights

This is part a series of behind-the-scenes posts from DPLA staffers. We hope that these posts will give you additional insight into what we’re working on, how we work, and progress toward our goals.

Recently, DPLA teamed up with our colleagues and friends at Europeana and Kennisland to promote global interoperability of our metadata, and specifically our Rights Statement fields. In October 2013, Europeana and the DPLA organized a first joint rights management workshop to explore this possibility in Boston.

A Helping Hand: Free Software and the DPLA
February 24, 2014

A Helping Hand: Free Software and the DPLA

DPLA is committed to making cultural heritage materials held in America’s libraries, archives, and museums freely available to all, and we provide maximally open data to encourage transformative uses of those materials by developers. In addition, DPLA is also proud to distribute the software we produce to support our mission to the wider community. In this post, Director for Technology Mark Matienzo details DPLA’s engagement with free and open source software.

Partnering with Public Libraries
February 14, 2014

Partnering with Public Libraries

With generous funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the DPLA is working on the Public Library Partnerships Project, in collaboration with Service Hubs and their local public libraries, that offers digital skills training to public librarians. Project manager Franky Abbott gives an update on current project work and future goals.

And we’re off! DPLA Tumblr up and running
February 11, 2014

And we’re off! DPLA Tumblr up and running

As our current users know, the depth of the riches in the DPLA sees no bounds. So, today we’re launching http://digitalpubliclibraryofamerica.tumblr.com/ to bring these riches to new audiences on tumblr.

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