Our beautiful showcase for public domain works, The Public Domain Review, has just launched its major fundraising drive. It needs your help to stay alive. Here’s a delightful film telling the tale of our cash-strapped editor’s struggle to keep afloat – share it far and wide!
With the initial funding for The Public Domain Review now come to an end, we need your support to help us continue our mission – to promote the public domain as an indispensable public good, and to curate and showcase the most interesting out-of-copyright works on the web.
The Public Domain Review has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2011. Over the course of our two years we’ve created a large and ever growing archive of some of the most interesting and unusual artefacts in the history of art, literature and ideas – from Gerard Manley Hopkins’s soaring meteorology of volcano sunsets, to 19th century French postcards of the year 2000; from Thomas Browne’s list of imaginary artefacts, to Napoleon’s Book of Fate.
As well as surfacing public domain rarities and curiosities from the world’s archives, we’ve provided a platform for leading writers, scholars and curators to show the things that they love to new audiences. Highlights of the last year include an article by Man Booker prize winner Julian Barnes, copious praise from lots of our favourite people and projects, and mentions in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Paris Review and Vice magazine.
But to carry the project on into the future we need money, and so we’re turning to our community for help. With your support we can continue to tell the world about the importance of the public domain, and help to bring its most exquisite and unusual spoils to more people than ever.
##How much do we need?
We’ve worked out that a sum of $20,000 will enable us to continue on into 2014. We are growing apace and the more and more people we have enjoying what we do, the easier it is going to be to carry on in the future. We need support now to break through to this next stage.
##The Tote bag!
With a little help from 17th century astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist and occult philosopher Robert Fludd, we have designed our very first piece of Public Domain Review merchandise – a rather wonderful tote bag! The picture is from Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi and, with its eclectic variety of disciplines depicted, it’s an image we feel represents the richness and variety of the public domain, that vast cultural commons which we are trying to open the door onto with our project. As a token of our gratitude we’ll be sending a bag free to every person who donates more than $40 (ca. €30 / £26).
To learn more about the fundraising campaign please visit: publicdomainreview.org/support
or, if you’d like, simply go straight to the donation form:
Many thanks for your support at this critical time
Theodora is press officer at the Open Knowledge Foundation, based in London. Get in touch via press@okfn.org
