New Sources and Rights section on The Public Domain Review

Today sees the announcement of two exciting new developments on The Public Domain Review, changes which centre on better celebrating those institutions which have decided to open up their collections and helping users understand the different rights for reuse that apply to the content.

New sources section

The new sources page – http://publicdomainreview.org/sources/ – lists the major sources for material found on The Public Domain Review: both online content aggregators (websites which bring together into one place digital copies from disparate sources) and the content providers themselves (the institutions who will often hold the physical object from which the digital copy has been made).

This list is intended to be at once a celebration of the sources we use in the creation of The Public Domain Review and also a mapping of the current landscape of openly licensed collections, a map which we hope will encourage users to explore these wonderful sources for themselves. We also hope that by highlighting the wealth of institutions that have already opened up their public domain collections, those institutions that have not yet opened up might be encouraged to do so.

Each institution has its own dedicated page which lists their content featured on our site.

New attribution feature and accompanying rights and re-use section

Each collection post on The Public Domain Review now has an accompanying table clearly stating:
1) the source form which the material derives
2) if relevant, a hat-tip to any person or website through which we found the material
3) download links, and
4) information regarding rights and re-use of both the underlying work and the digital copy which we are presenting.

To accompany the “rights and re-use” part of this new feature we have a dedicated page “Rights labelling on our site” which functions to explain some of the terms encountered and, in general, give a helpful overview of the landscape regarding the complex world of rights and re-use relating to public domain works and their digital copies.

We hope that these changes will help give the recognition deserved to the institutions that have taken the bold step of openly licensing their collections, and also that those who appreciate the fruits of this labor will, with more transparency regarding rights, feel more empowered to share and re-use it. If you’re interested in issues around open licensing of cultural content and want to help us build a cultural commons for everyone to use and enjoy, visit OpenGLAM.org.