By Trevor Owens Senior Library Program Officer, IMLS On April 28, a group of experts in digital library issues will convene at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. to provide insights into key issues to inform national digital platform priority of IMLS. In an effort to open up the discussion and conversation of the national digital platform convening, we are excited to host the agency’s first Twitter chat. Join the Conversation From 3 – 4 p.m. EDT, on April 20, the IMLS Twitter account will be asking a series of questions using the hashtag #IMLSFocus. To join the conversation, make sure your tweets include this hashtag. Tweets from this chat, as well as tweets shared during the convening on April 28, will be incorporated alongside the remarks and questions from the face-to-face event into the meeting report. Background on the National Digital Platform The objective of the national digital platform is to build capacity to provide digital content and services to every person in the country. As libraries increasingly use digital infrastructure to provide access to digital content and resources, more opportunities for collaboration will become available. It is possible for each library in the country to leverage and benefit from the work of other libraries in shared digital services, systems, and infrastructure. The national digital platform is a way of thinking about and approaching the digital capability and capacity of libraries across the United States. The platform isn’t a piece of software, website, or individual thing. It is what results from all of those pieces working together. It is the combination of software applications, social and technical infrastructure, and staff expertise that provide library content and services to all users in the United States. How to Participate If you do not already have one, create a Twitter account. On Monday, April 20, during the chat period of 3 – 4 p.m. EDT, tweet using the hashtag #IMLSFocus. You can monitor the tweets related to the chat by searching for #IMLSFocus on Twitter. During the Twitter chat period, @US_IMLS will tweet numbered questions (for example, “Q1: What are your organization’s biggest challenges in providing digital content to your users?”) Your response tweet should reference the question (for example, “A1: We struggle with providing our users with straightforward access to rights restricted content, in particular, eBooks”). _________________ Twitter chat questions for the event:

1. What are your organization's biggest challenges in providing digital content to your users?
2. Are there open source software or tools your institution uses to provide digital content and services to your users that you think should be scaled up?
3. What kinds of digital content are most critical to your organization’s users?
4. What are the biggest gaps in digital software, tools, and services for libraries that need to be filled?
5. What emerging technologies/approaches are you following that you think have the most potential to bring practices to scale?
6. What models and approaches are succeeding at providing library professionals with the skills they need to use and contribute to digital library infrastructure?