Category Archives: online books

Stoking creative fires: Counting down to Public Domain Day 2026

Posted on November 12, 2025 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Until I saw it performed earlier this month, I had doubts that one could successfully adapt an unthemed magazine issue into a stage play. But that’s what the New Classics Collective did with the first and only issue of Fire!!, … Continue reading →

Posted in online books, open access, publicdomain, sharing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Meet the people behind the books

Posted on August 19, 2025 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Today I’m introducing new pages for people and other authors on The Online Books Page. The new pages combine and augment information that’s been on author listings and subject pages. They let readers see in one place books both about … Continue reading →

Posted in data, discovery, libraries, metadata, online books, wikipedia | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Expanding access to current scholarship with JSTOR’s open access books

Posted on March 25, 2025 by John Mark Ockerbloom

We’ve recently added more than ten thousand freely readable recent books from academic publishers to the extended shelves of The Online Books Page. These online titles are provided by JSTOR’s Open Access Books collection, and represent the first large-scale automated … Continue reading →

Posted in metadata, online books, open access, serials, sharing, Uncategorized, university presses | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Not by accident, but by action

Posted on March 2, 2025 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I didn’t mean to create a sexist library collection when I set out to build one. But in 1994, when I showed Mary the catalog of online books I’d started the previous year, one of her first questions was “Where … Continue reading →

Posted in libraries, online books, people, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

My thanks to all sharing books online

Posted on July 4, 2023 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Two score and twelve years ago, Michael Hart sat down at a terminal at the University of Illinois and typed in the text of the Declaration of Independence. He shared the file he created with other users of the computer … Continue reading →

Posted in online books, open access, people, sharing | Comments Off on My thanks to all sharing books online

Building a new banned books exhibit for a new era

Posted on September 20, 2022 by John Mark Ockerbloom

When I first created Banned Books Online over 25 years ago, I wasn’t primarily worried about book censorship. I was worried about Internet censorship. It was 1994, and the world at large was just getting to know the Internet, which … Continue reading →

Posted in censorship, libraries, online books | Comments Off on Building a new banned books exhibit for a new era

Public Domain Day 2021: Honoring a lost generation

Posted on January 1, 2021 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s Public Domain Day again. In much of Europe, and other countries with “life+70 years” copyright terms, works by authors who died in 1950, such as George Orwell, Karin Michaelis, George Bernard Shaw, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, have joined … Continue reading →

Posted in online books, open access, publicdomain | 3 Comments

Welcome to everybody’s online libraries

Posted on March 16, 2020 by John Mark Ockerbloom

As coronavirus infections spread throughout the world, lots of people are staying home to slow down the spread and save lives.  In the US, many universities, schools, and libraries have closed their doors.  (Here’s what happening at the library where … Continue reading →

Posted in libraries, online books, open access | 4 Comments

The worth of the work

Posted on September 20, 2019 by John Mark Ockerbloom

A number of research libraries, including the one where I work, are increasingly interested in catalogs built on linked data rather than on MARC records. Linked data work has been going on for years, in the hopes of reaping benefits … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, libraries, metadata, online books | Comments Off on The worth of the work

More and better copyright data online for serials and books

Posted on June 28, 2019 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s getting easier over time to find and use data on copyrights, and thereby to find and make use of materials in the public domain.  Here’s a quick update on what’s new and what’s coming, in my projects and elsewhere. … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access, serials | Comments Off on More and better copyright data online for serials and books