 So, my guess is that most people sitting here in the room are delighted at the notion of a digital public library of America. The idea of it is inspiring and large and worth working on, which I think is reflected in the hundreds of people who have signed up to join the listserv, the many people who are here today, all the work that's gone on the wiki. But I suspect that of the 60 or so people in the room, we probably have, oh, about 60 different views of what a digital public library of America might be. And I actually think for now that's good. There's a lot of energy around a concept, but I think we have to get somewhat more precise. And today is the first day of doing that. We've chosen one of five work streams as our focus today. The five work streams are on the DPLA wiki. I won't go into them all. But the scope and content work stream is the first one. In some earlier conversations with Don Waters of the Mellon Foundation, he pushed us hard to say what the it is of a DPLA and to start with the idea of what might go into a digital public library of America, to think about the content. That's not the only thing, of course, we will touch on today, but that is the primary one, is to think about content and scope. That's our primary objective. Just to set expectations, our job, though, is not to settle any issues today. I think in the way that lawyers think about it, this is a day for framing the issues, for identifying what the important and interesting issues are. And if possible, getting a sense from the people who are gathered here of whether there's a consensus or there's not a consensus. I'm thinking in rough terms of the way the IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, thinks about rough consensus and running code. Do we have a sense from the room that we are in the right area on some of these key hard issues? We will then take what we have learned today and put it publicly again on the wiki, though we have time for everyone to comment on it further. And I really think of this as a very early day in a long journey towards something that could be wonderful and ambitious. So that's the basic game plan. We have a series of wonderful presenters who will talk for very short periods of time. There are also moderators who will be empowered to cut people off so that we keep this moving. We have until six today, but there are so many wonderful voices in the room and so many rich topics that we're going to keep people to one per customer. As our colleague Charlie Nesson says, when you're making comments and questions, so please forgive us in advance for that kind of cutting off process. So let me tee up just a few of the issues that in planning for this meeting we knew would come up and we think will come up. They're not necessarily identified for different settings, but I wanted to put them on the table. So of course what it is is the primary one, but breaking that down a little bit. What are the kinds of content that might be able to be included in a digital public library of America? Plainly there are things that I think of in a green category, green being like a green light, things that ought to be of course and I think some of the giants of the green space are here. Brewster Kale, to be sure, chief among them. Certainly the United States government will hear from Deanna Markham at lunch and others who have been doing work in digitizing materials where the issue is not one of clearing rights or otherwise it's about making things accessible. On another end of the spectrum, we have a series of things that I think of in a kind of a red category, a red light where it would be very hard for us under current copyright to make these materials available. But they might be extremely important to have in a digital public library of America. This might, for instance, be books that are in print and in copyright created today. Professor Darten's next book, for instance, could we find a way through licensing or otherwise to include such a book in a digital public library of America? And then in the middle, I think of as things in a yellow category, yellow light, something like the 20% or however your number is of orphan works in the United States context. Things where we might need reform of the copyright law in order to be able to put these materials in with a sense of confidence. And where maybe the job of the DPLA community is to come up with a package, as Pam Samuelson has described, a package of possible copyright reforms that would make possible more. So that's one set of issues. What does the content scope look like? We've done a lot of work on the Wiki, which I encourage you to look at analyzing different sets of contents over that hopefully we'll build that out. Second big issue, is this DPLA, Digital Public Library of America, about access only or are we thinking about other things? I think the opening bid is to say this is about access not say about preservation. That may be wrong, but let's try it. Let's try these ideas and see what we think about them. There are other giants of course in the room, the Hathi Trust and many other efforts that are looking at different aspects of this. How do we see the whole elephant, but the right parts of the elephant that we need to work on in this context? And how do we collaborate effectively with those who are doing at large scale and impressive ways, those things that are outside of the scope of this effort and yet very important for the future of libraries and information? Third, a hot button, bless you, from the list. Does public, the word public belong in the title? That's a loaded term, an important term. It does bring many of us into the room I think in important ways. But what does it mean to think about this as a public enterprise? We're delighted so many public librarians and those representing the public are here today. We'll continue to focus on that, but we need to raise this issue. Fourth, to the extent that it's about access, will access be consistent across all forms of content or must it be tiered in some fashion? This is a term I think that some are allergic to. Many who have been involved in the creation of the internet itself say, we've somehow managed to resist the temptation to tier to this point. With things like the internet, we need to resist it here. Others will say no, there's no way that we could think about a broad universe of content in these red, yellow, and green buckets without thinking about tiering of access in some fashion. Is that a necessary piece and if so, how do we think about it and work through it? Fifth, will we build something through this effort or not? Is this an effort that in fact is just a community of people eager to talk about something or will it construct something? And will that be a big, beautiful edifice or it will be a series of technical standards for instance, ways in which we coordinate? Sixth, how do we get broad involvement beyond the group of people who are here in the room or even the few hundred people on our list are working on the wiki? How over time do we structure a process where everybody who wishes to be involved can be involved and yet we still make progress? There is an obvious tension between wanting to be transparent and inclusive and participatory and public about an effort but also needing at some points to retrench and make some decisions and move forward in a way that not everybody is going to be happy with the outcome and managing that, those twin poles. And last, just as an issue that's much on my mind, how do we learn from those efforts that are underway right now or those that have been tried in the past from which we can take lessons? So some of them are represented in the room. Europeana for instance is a comparable effort happening in Europe with a different structure, different way of thinking about it, quite a different cultural context as my friends from Europe remind me over and over again, and yet a very similar as I get it kind of sense or gestalt of what they're after, what can we learn from that and what can we learn from efforts like this in the past that haven't been successful. We probably all have our examples in our head. How do we learn from things that we've tried before and not gotten done? So those are my initial set of issues that I wanted to set on the table. Many more will emerge over the course of the day. Again, we will vet them all in this discussion and publicly. None of them is to be decided today, but I wanted just to get a sense of what we have on our mind as a collective and build out from there in a collaborative fashion. Okay, so that's the overall game plan. I want to thank a few people before turning it over to Doran Weber. In particular, I want to thank the program committee. There was a group that worked with more remarks and with me, Greg Crane, Rachel Frick, Josh Greenberg, Brian Shotlander, John Unsworth and John Wilkin who helped to frame these issues and to identify people to speak to them. So I'd like to thank that group now with a round of applause if I might. And equally important, the extraordinary Berkman Center team. Right in the back who have done the sort of secretary at work to get us all here today and we'll continue to through this process. Rebecca Haycock and her crew, thank you so much for the efforts you've made today. I'm much appreciated. Great, so with that, I would like to turn over the mic to my friend and colleague Doran Weber to say a few words and then we will get into the first session. Thank you, John. Hi everybody. It's a pleasure to be here on behalf of the Sloan Foundation and to welcome you all to this working group meeting on the content and scope of a digital public library of America. This is the first of a series of meetings and workshops to help us define what this ideal library should look like, what materials and collections it should include and how it can function in the real world. We have an impressive group of leaders and experts here from many great libraries, both academic and public, from cultural institutions, technology companies, think tanks, NGOs, government agencies and foundations. We thank each of you for making the time to be here. Thank you also to the DPLOA Steering Committee and to the Program Committee for this meeting and a special thank you to our hosts, the masterfully deft and gifted John Paul Frehnist entire team at the Berkman Center. A big shout out to more marks and Rebecca Haycock who have not just organized today's workshop but have done such an excellent job of opening up the discussion through a public listserv and a planning initiative wiki. The more input and the more ideas we receive from all the stakeholders and the broader community, the more truly representative and robust will the final work plan be. We urge those who are here to stay involved and to invite others into this big tent. We're going to hear a lot today about the challenges and obstacles we face. What collections and what types of collections to include and what to exclude, what services we need to make this content useful. What data and what metadata to collect and how to make it interoperable. How to deal with vendors and materials on various types of restrictions. And how to best link with international efforts. While these issues are hugely important and we cannot proceed without arriving at some rough consensus about them. I'm going to step back and play cheerleader for a moment reminding you how far we've come lest anyone lose sight of the magnificent forest for the prickly trees and brambles that still surround us. Since the advent of the World Wide Web and the capability of mass digitization, people have talked about the dream of a universal digital library and the stark opportunity of creating a space, be it virtual or real, where our cumulative intellectual heritage can be made available to everyone. A space where people can go to access all the information and the knowledge that human civilization has to offer. It's a dream shared by many and many have tilted at this windmill. And now increasingly it's no longer just a dream and a stark opportunity but also an obligation and a responsibility. Because it's clear the digital revolution has rendered the traditional library insufficient for the digital age, while no clear new paradigm has yet emerged. Will the library of the future be purely digital, a single memory stick I can hold in the palm of my hand? Or will it be a hybrid library of physical and digital collections widely distributed while remaining a local center for community, citizenship, education, and individual empowerment? Each of you here has his or her own ideas on this future library. And many of you have made or are making important, even pioneering contributions in this field. But until our landmark meeting in October 2010, just five months ago, you never had all agreed to try and work together towards a single shared vision. For the record or off the record, some of you had never before even agreed to be in the same room with each other. That inaugural meeting hosted by Robert Darrington at the Radcliffe Institute and supported by the Sloan Foundation established a working name and an initial statement of principle to get the ball rolling. I remind you of this not because either the name or the statement is cast in stone. Knowing this group, we will probably amend both by lunchtime. Because it shows the importance of emphasizing agreement and common purpose as well as difference in divergence. Participants at the seminal meeting agreed to work together towards the creation of quote, a digital public library of America. That is an open, distributed network of comprehensive online resources that would draw on the nation's living heritage from libraries, universities, archives, and museums in order to educate, inform, and empower everyone in the current and future generations. The meeting which was oversubscribed generated enormous excitement and energy. We formed a steering committee right after discussed next steps and how to capitalize on the palpable momentum. Articles were written, blogs posted, email sent, gossip, rumor, twittering, tittering, and posturing generated, and the word got out. Many people wanted to join and help. Some wanted to criticize and lambaste. Several wanted to do both. We invited them all in. In December, Sloane gave the Berkman Center a planning grant to act as a coordinator and central switchboard for following activities to the Radcliffe meeting, including a series of workshops at which this is the first. In the next few months, there will also be meetings and workshops on governance, legal issues, technical aspects, and finance, and business models. No doubt, more articles, blogs, gossip, rumor, twittering, and tittering, and posturing, as well as immensely valuable new ideas and contributions. Meanwhile, as an outgrowth of today's meeting and other workshops, the steering committee will develop the initial Radcliffe statement of principle into a draft charter for the Digital Public Library of America and distribute it for comment to all the stakeholders in the wider community. Along with the draft charter, we will develop a roadmap for moving forward. In the spring, I will host a funder's meeting in New York, joined by Don Waters of Mellon and others. And we will try to come up with an initial price tag from this initiative and funding strategies to involve the many foundations who expressed interest in supporting this idea. We'll also discuss a government funding role. In the summer, David Ferriero of the National Archives will host a Washington DC meeting with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian to further develop this idea and to rally support for it in the nation's capital. By the fall of this year, we hope to be embarked on a full-scale program to build the Digital Public Library of America. So we're making real progress, despite the many questions and challenges that remain. And today's workshop is part of a big movement and a stark opportunity for us all. Sloan, like the rest of you, has previously tried to advance this goal on its own. We've supported the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress, and Lyrisis, formerly Palin et. Sloanet, in mass digitization efforts. We've supported the Open Content Alliance and Open Knowledge Commons, the Boston Library Consortium, and efforts to build community and coalitions. We've supported Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in history, and the fifth most popular website in the world. And we've supported the Espresso Book Machine to make printed books available from a digital file in under five minutes. And more recently, we supported Berkeley and the National Academy of Sciences to study copyright issues and, of course, the Radcliffe Institute and the Berkman Center for these latest initiatives. But no single foundation or university or library or archive or private company can do this on its own. The key here is inclusiveness, openness, and comprehensiveness, the broadest coalition of stakeholders, from publishers and authors to research in public libraries, cultural, scientific institutions, state and local government, and private industry. The federal government, archives, foundations, and educational groups, all of whom share a common vision and are willing to work together in a unified and decentralized network to make it operable and real. So I hope today you'll all feel free to air your views vigorously, whatever they may be. But I also hope we can keep our eye on the ball and find a way to bridge our differences, make hard choices, and begin to flesh out this universal online library concept that takes the best of what we already have and makes new and even better uses of it for the greatest possible good and the largest number of people. It's a tall order, but nothing could be more critical for educational, cultural, technological, social, legal, moral, intellectual, and commercial future than a digital public library system in our digital age. We have a lot of work to do, but the opportunity is unprecedented and the pension payoff is enormous. Let's please not lose sight of this larger vision as we wade into today's discussion about the unwieldy content and uncertainty scope of the strange hybrid new creatures struggling to be born the digital public library of America. Thank you. Doran, thank you for that uplifting statement. I look forward to the Twittering and Tittering as well to continue and to your continued leadership and support.