The Public Domain Review (a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation) is a great resource that highlights a variety of digitized public domain resources and curated collections, including images, film, text, and audio. In addition, there are scholarly articles from various humanities disciplines that engage with the digital materials included on the site.
The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available online.
All works eventually fall out of copyright – from classic works of art, music and literature, to abandoned drafts, tentative plans, and overlooked fragments. In doing so they enter the public domain, a vast commons of material that everyone is free to enjoy, share and build upon without restriction.
We believe the public domain is an invaluable and indispensable good, which – like our natural environment and our physical heritage – deserves to be explicitly recognised, protected and appreciated.
The Public Domain Review aims to help its readers to explore this rich terrain – like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance of an immense network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond.
The PDR also has a thorough guide to finding interesting public domain works online. Collaborators include the Internet Archive, Europa, the Library of Congress, the Field Museum, the Boston Public Library, the California Digital Library, the Smithsonian Institution, the Getty, and more.
For more information, visit the Public Domain Review.
