Co-Creating Digital Experiences with Public Libraries

This post was written by Sahar Kazmi and edited by Jaime Mears. A longer version of this post appeared in the Library of Congress staff Gazette on July 25th, 2025.

The Library of Congress has embarked on a new multiyear digital initiative, LOCal, that will help expand access to the digital collections through partnerships with public libraries. The effort, which is made possible by philanthropic grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and other generous funders, will enable the Library to partner with two public libraries to co-create interactive digital experiences that connect local communities with relevant materials held in the Library’s collections.

The initiative will be led by the Digital Innovation Division (LC Labs) in the Office of the Chief Information Officer in collaboration with staff from Discovery and Preservation Services, Researcher and Collections Services and other experts from across the Library. LOCal will offer a unique avenue for staff to work closely with public libraries and the communities they serve while exploring emerging technologies and approaches to create meaningful experiences with the Library’s vast digital collections.

The Library of Congress has selected two public library partners to collaborate for LOCal: Eastern Oklahoma Library System and Cleveland Public Library.

“Public libraries are often the first places people turn to conduct local research, get inspired or connect with their neighbors,” Digital Innovation Division Chief Laurie Allen said. “While the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, our vast and varied collections speak to people from all across the country and help tell their unique stories. We’re honored for the opportunity to work alongside these two amazing library systems to connect our expert staff and unparalleled materials with their community expertise and imagination.”

Over the next two years, Library staff will work with the Eastern Oklahoma Library System and Cleveland Public Library to explore and develop innovative ways to showcase the stories and treasures the Library holds from these communities. Planning for the initiative is underway, and each experience will be developed in close collaboration with community members and local library staff.

“Each LOCal experience will be social and dynamic, and we’ll be tapping into the expertise of our Library colleagues and local library staff to create installations using state-of-the-art technology and creative elements,” LC Labs Senior Innovation Specialist Jaime Mears said. “They may feature interactive kiosks, immersive screens or other transportive components and pull from both Library of Congress and local collections.”

The Library of Congress is home to extensive digital collections from across the United States, and Eastern Oklahoma and Cleveland are no exceptions. Researchers can discover materials from Eastern Oklahoma in a variety of formats, time periods and collections across the Library. These include the Farm Security Administration Collection, Veterans History Project, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Collection, Carol Highsmith Photography Archive, Chronicling America newspaper archive and more.

Similarly for Cleveland, users can find digital material in collections such as the Works Progress Administration Posters, Stereograph Cards, Detroit Publishing Company photography archive, the Historic American Engineering Record and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.

The Eastern Oklahoma Library System is a multi-county organization serving 15 libraries in six counties in Eastern Oklahoma: Muskogee, Adair, Cherokee, Delaware, McIntosh, and Sequoyah. The library system has demonstrated its innovative approach to services and programs through the early adoption of maker spaces, the Library of Things borrowing program, a Memory Lab for digitizing older media and online reading, printing and database resources. They also have developed innovative programming such as Touch-A-Truck, where community members can see, touch and interact with dozens of vehicles from fire trucks to cement trucks.

Founded in 1869, Cleveland Public Library serves the residents of Cleveland through its network of 27 neighborhood branches, the Main Library downtown, Public Administration Library at City Hall, homebound delivery services and mobile services to daycare and senior centers.

From a collection of over 10 million items, the library has traditionally circulated nearly 6 million items a year to its 300,000 registered borrowers and to 45 other network member libraries in 12 counties across Northeast Ohio. Cleveland Public Library is home to the Ohio Center for the Book and the Ohio Library for the Blind and Print Disabled, serving all 88 counties in the state of Ohio.

Since 2017, LC Labs has experimented with creative uses of the digital collections and researched the integration of emerging technologies with the Library’s materials. The LOCal initiative follows the work of the Library’s Innovator in Residence program, through which selected artists and technologists have produced transformative digital work for the American people from free-to-use Library collections.

Past innovators worked closely with Library staff to create new hip-hop music with the Library’s free-to-use audio and video materials, reimagine how to navigate digitized newspapers with machine learning, and digitally reconstruct historic places with photos, maps, and virtual reality technologies.

If you have questions about the LOCal initiative, email [email protected].