The following is a post by Sam Leon, Community Co-ordinator for The Public Domain Review and other Open Knowledge Foundation projects. It is cross-posted from the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Public Domain Working Group Blog.

At The Public Domain Review we’re always scouring the internet for public domain gems. It’s simply incredible how much of our shared cultural heritage is now available for free online. But with so much content out there and with so many different digital collections to choose from it can often be difficult to know where to start looking for interesting and curious works. On top of this, it can often be difficult to understand what you’re allowed to do with a given work and what the license that is applied to it actually means.

It was because of these difficulties that we decided to write a Guide to Finding Interesting Public Domain Works Online. In the guide you’ll find information on how to collect leads, an overview of the main online public domain collections (e.g. Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive & Wikisource) as well as some basic legal information about licensing and the public domain.

Happy exploring! If you come across something that you think could be featured on The Public Domain Review give me a shout at sam.leon [at] publicdomainreview [dot] org.

Related posts:

1. Cornell University Library keeps reproductions of public domain works in the public domain Yesterday Cornell University University Library announced that it will ‘remove all restrictions’ on digital reproductions of public domain works, meaning these are open as in opendefinition.org. From the press release: ITHACA, N.Y. (May 11, 2009) – In a dramatic change...
2. Which works enter the public domain in 2011? Every year on January 1st hundreds of works enter the public domain around the world. So how do we know which works will come of age in 2011? Like last year we are keen to get a picture of this...
3. Launch of the Public Domain Review to celebrate Public Domain Day 2011 The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The 1st of January every year is Public Domain Day, when new works enter the public domain in many (though unfortunately not all) countries around the...