Public Domain Resource Guide
- Jesse Darland
The Public Domain Review's Guide to Finding Interesting Public Domain Works Online
This handy guide outlines dozens of sources for public domain and Creative Commons content from all over the web. We recommend this guide as a great starting point for a public domain content search. The list is maintained by the Open Knowledge Foundation's Public Domain Review website.
The Library of Congress
A great resource not only for historical photographs, but also for maps, lithographs, broadsheets, manuscripts and miscellaneous ephemera – basically, those “other documents” that can add dimension and historical context to your anthology. Be sure to check the Rights Advisory for a piece of content before including it (this is normally included in the “About This Item” tab that accompanies each item). Also, items in special collections may only be usable under certain conditions.
You can search by medium format simply by clicking the drop down menu and choosing from the collection or you can search by keywords.
For many items, you are given the option to download a small JPEG version, a larger JPEG version, and a TIFF version. Download the larger JPEG version for best results!
Wikimedia Commons
The site features a wide range of photographs and other image types (postcards, maps, etc) that are either in the public domain or under Creative Commons licenses.
WikiPaintings
A great collection of paintings that are (mostly) in the public domain. You can browse by style, genre, technique, art movement, and more. You can also search for a specific art piece by typing the name of the work or the artist in the search bar.
World Digital Library
This website is an excellent resource for all things historical. The World Digital Library has managed to accumulate a wealth of digitized content ranging from journals and manuscripts to maps and sound recordings. The content is categorized not only by type of item and topic, but also by the contributing institution and the place the original work was found. There are works from North America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific.
Make sure if you’re downloading content from this website that it comes in one of three formats pdf (books and manuscripts), .jpeg (images), or mp3 (audio files).
U.S. Government Photos and Images
U.S. Government Photos and Images is a site that houses thousands of pieces of content by and about the United States of America. You’ll find images, videos and more.
This site houses links to various other sites. To avoid a wild goose chase, I recommend typing in a keyword in the search bar then choosing either “images” or “videos” from the left hand categories. This pulls together the images and videos from all of the contributing sites. Since this site links to other sites, pay attention to the copyright disclaimers on each individual site.
Getty Research Portal
The Getty Research Portal is an online search platform providing global access to digitized art history texts in the public domain. The Portal is comprised of catalog records that link to full, digitized texts held at contributing institutions.
Visit the Portal’s FAQ page for more information on the content that can be found there.
Botanicus
Botanicus is a portal that houses historical botanical literature. This site would be useful for those creating anthologies about a specific region or for those seeking special types of content to round out their anthologies. Make sure you visit the “Copyright” tab before you download any content for helpful tips on how to download specific media types and how to provide correct attribution for content under a Creative Commons license.
To make the searching process easier, try browsing by year or utilizing the search bar.
Calisphere
Calisphere hosts a wealth of primary material specifically about California, but that doesn’t mean you have to be creating an anthology about California to use this site. With images, documents and more categorized by time period, contributing institution and category, this site is worth sifting through.
Begin your search by selecting a time period from the list of themed collections on the left hand site of the home page. You’ll find an Overview of the event, information about the images and questions to consider about the primary source materials.
NOAA Historical Map and Chart Collection
With four featured collections along with thousands of other maps and charts, this site is perfect for those anthologies about a specific US state or location.
You can search the database using the regular, non-geographic search engine or by selecting a state from the map-based searching platform. To search from the map-based platform, simply click on the link in the upper left hand corner.