[1] The DPLA is a discovery tool, or union catalog, for public domain and openly licensed content held by the United States' archives, libraries, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions.

"[4][needs update] John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center, stated in 2011: "We aspire to establish a system whereby all Americans can gain access to information and knowledge in digital formats in a manner that is 'free to all.'

The service uses GPS to determine a user's location and allows them to freely access the exact books that have been banned in their local area.

[11] In September 2012, an inaugural Board of Directors was appointed to guide the DPLA: Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons; Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries and Professor of Information at the University of Michigan; Laura DeBonis, Former Director of Library Partnerships for Google Book Search; Luis Herrera, City Librarian for San Francisco; and John Palfrey, Head of School at Phillips Academy Andover, who served as board chairman.

[16] Critiques of the project during its planning phase included its vagueness, lack of internal cohesion, potentially redundant overlap with similar efforts (such as Project Gutenberg), and potential to redirect financial support away from existing public libraries.

[21] Harvard University staff, led by project's managing director Maura Marx and principal investigator John Palfrey, coordinated a broad-based team that built the DPLA's digital library platform, which launched on April 18, 2013.