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Digital Collections Blog Logo

Library’s Digital Collections joins Smithsonian, Harvard as resource on global website
Aspects of Digitization: Resource Sharing

07/17/21

By: I. S.

Miami’s rich culture and artwork showcased in the Library’s Digital Collections now shares the same online stage as content from Smithsonian, Harvard and the Library of Congress.

Photographs, letters and records from before Florida was a state to the present are now accessible through the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) website.

Diagram of flowers

Botanical Charts,
Page 6
Mrs. Millar Wilson
1933
mdplflarb201810150001

DPLA is a Boston-based non-profit with international reach that harvests resources from its members and makes them available in one place. The DPLA empowers people to learn, grow, and contribute to a diverse and better-functioning society by maximizing access to our shared history, culture, and knowledge.

Digital Collections, whose mission is to scan and make available online a wide spectrum of Library materials, has been working with DPLA since 2018.

Map of Miami

Original Miami, incorporated 1896, with subsequent annexations, dis-annexations & re-annexations
Frank F. Stearns (Planning Director); R.E. Smalley (Planning Illustrator)
1925
mdplflafm202009180001

Every quarter, DPLA harvests new content from the Digital Collections website and uploads that content to its own site. Whether it is maps, videos or blueprints, these records always link back to the MDPLS Digital Collections.

It is a great way for our items to be more easily discovered by users around the world. This lets people know what a rich heritage we have and all the great unique content that is available through the Library.

Surrounded Islands: "Pink Day" arrives
1983-05-04
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Many of the materials that exist only in the collections of the Miami Dade Public Library System are made available through DPLA.

This includes the photographs of Gleason Waite Romer, who documented important Miami history such as the construction of the famous downtown Courthouse building and the destruction after the Great Hurricane of 1926.

Building under construction

View of Dade County Courthouse under construction
Gleason Waite Romer (1887-1971)
1927-06
mdplflaro201803270050

Hurricane damage

Inspectors at property destroyed during the Great Hurricane of 1926
Gleason Waite Romer (1887-1971)
mdplflaro201902050002

Unique artworks by nationally acclaimed artists such as Emilio Sanchez, Gigi Aramescu, and Purvis Young.

Painting

St. Croix, Niños
Emilio Sánchez (1921-1999)
mdplpaces201908210003

Painting

Untitled
Georgeta "Gigi" Aramescu Anderson (1910-1994)
mdplpacga202103300006

Artbook

Artbook

Gazette of the world,
front cover view / back cover view
Purvis Young (1943-2010)
mdplpacpy201909200001

Historical resources from Miami-Dade County departments like PortMiami, Miami-Dade Transit, and, naturally, the Miami-Dade Public Library System.

Map

Central area of the Port of Miami showing proposed land utilization,
Page 1
Mott of Washington & Associates
mdplptrpm202102100006

Map

Metrorail Grand Opening
Metropolitan Dade County (Fla.)
1985-05-19
mdplflatr202104010011

Blueprints

Blueprints for Miami Memorial Library
1961-06
mdplflalb201912270032

Visit the DPLA website today to see these and other items from institutions all over the country.