New York Public Library Public Domain Collections

[pherank]

New York Public Library Public Domain Collections: Free to Share & Reuse

"On January 6, 2016, The New York Public Library enhanced access to all public domain items in Digital Collections so that everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways."

http://www.nypl.org/research/collections/digital-collections/public-domain

"Front entrance" to the entire digital collection (not all public domain), including the Jerome Robbins Dance Division archives:
http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/

[California]

I am so glad to see NYPL join what is becoming an important movement in the art world. They join the Getty Open Content Program and the National Gallery of Art Open Access program (and dozens of other smaller art museums), in which you can download and use (without permission or royalty payment) an enormous number of public domain works in their collections.

As most know, it's normally not enough that the underlying work be in the public domain; there is additional copyright on the process of digitizing the work to display on-line. Getty has a wonderful rationale for their program: they want people to enjoy great art and dropping the old restrictions is a great way to do this.

I wonder if the explosion of sites like YouTube has nudged the NYPL and others to get on board. Bravo to all of them! (Or is that bravi...?)

[sandik]

I don't know what nudged them in this direction, but I'm thrilled to see them get there!

[Kathleen O'Connell]

I don't know what nudged them in this direction, but I'm thrilled to see them get there!

I'm not surprise at all. Robert Darnton, one of the NYPL's trustees* has long been an advocate of making digitized collections from libraries everywhere readily and freely available to all:

"The Digital Public Library of America, to be launched on April 18, is a project to make the holdings of America’s research libraries, archives, and museums available to all Americans—and eventually to everyone in the world—online and free of charge." (The National Digital Public Library Is Launched!)

* Darnton was one of the defenders of the controversial renovation plan for the historic Fifth Avenue building that would have involved, among other things, selling the Library's mid-Manhattan branch, moving the circulating collection housed there into the main building, and moving several million volumes from the research collection from the main building to an offsite location. That plan has been abandoned after much public outcry. Darnton's defense of the plan is here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/07/defense-new-york-public-library/ (but alas, behind the New York Review of Books' paywall). Charles Peterson's impassioned objection to it in n+1 is here: Lions in Winter.

[sandik]

Thanks for the links -- I can't say I was incredibly enthusiastic about the proposal, but mostly because I don't want to lose any of the work of the library, both protecting the past and leading into the future.