Controlled Digital Lending Expanding

Thanks to Chris Freeland of the Internet Archive for sharing the news that various Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) projects are getting substantial grant funding:

Last week, Boston Library Consortium (BLC) announced it has received a $215,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to accelerate BLC's implementation of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). The project will support BLC's plans for integrating CDL into interlibrary loan operations across the consortium.

Charlie Barlow, BLC's executive director, highlighted the importance of the grant, writing in an announcement that the foundation funding "sends a strong signal to other libraries, consortia, and vendors that an interoperable solution developed collaboratively by and for libraries and consortia is within reach."

This project joins other active CDL grants funded by foundations, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's recent grant to NISO for CDL standards, and Arcadia Fund's grants to the Internet Archive, among others.

The NISO project is getting underway and promises to develop standards for the exchange of items through Controlled Digital Lending: formats, protocols, circulation, ILL, etc. Despite controversy (and a lawsuit) over its use, more libraries are interested in CDL as a way to share works digitally, especially the literally millions of works not available in digital form. Support from major grantors contribute to CDL’s development . . . an legitimacy.