Category Archives: online books

Public Domain Day 2018: The 20-year alarm clock

Posted on January 1, 2018 by John Mark Ockerbloom

In Washington Irving’s classic story “Rip van Winkle“, the title character follows an archaically-dressed stranger into a mountain hideaway, falls asleep, and wakes up to find the world has moved on 20 years without him.  He’s alarmed at first, but … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access, serials, sharing | 1 Comment

Public Domain Day 2016: Freezes and thaws

Posted on January 1, 2016 by John Mark Ockerbloom

For most of the past 55 years, the public domain in the United States has gone through a series of partial or complete freezes.  We’ve gotten used to them by now.  A thaw is coming soon, though, if there are … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access, serials | 1 Comment

Public Domain Day 2015: Ending our own enclosures

Posted on January 1, 2015 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s the start of the new year, which, as many of my readers know, marks another Public Domain Day, when a year’s worth of creative work becomes free for anyone to use in many countries. In countries where copyrights have … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, libraries, online books, open access, sharing | 3 Comments

50,000 online book and serial catalog records released as CC0

Posted on August 23, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

What a difference a few years can make.  A few years ago, folks in the library world (myself included) were arguing about whether it was a good idea to let other people copy and build on their catalog records.  Whether … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, data, discovery, metadata, online books, open access, sharing | 6 Comments

Categorizing people without marginalizing them

Posted on April 29, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Libraries and bookstores have perennially faced the problem of how to organize books on their shelves.  There’s a tension between making certain books easy to find for readers with one set of interests, and making them more difficult to find … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, libraries, metadata, online books, people, subjects | 2 Comments

From Wikipedia to our libraries

Posted on March 4, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve heard the lament in more than one library discussion over the years.  “People aren’t coming to our library like they should,” librarians have told me.  “We’ve got a rich collection, and we’ve expended lots of resources on an online … Continue reading →

Posted in citizen librarians, discovery, libraries, online books, subjects | 24 Comments

From my library to yours

Posted on February 11, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Even with well over one and half million books and serials, the collection I maintain at The Online Books Page is far from comprehensive.  The gaps in coverage are not hard to notice at sites like mine, because most material … Continue reading →

Posted in libraries, online books | 2 Comments

Public Domain Day 2013: or, There and Back Again

Posted on January 1, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The first day of the new year is Public Domain Day, when many countries celebrate a year’s worth of copyrights expiring, and the associated works become freely available for anyone to share and adapt.  As the Public Domain Day page … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access, sharing | 4 Comments

Persistence

Posted on December 30, 2012 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The week between Christmas and New Years is mostly time off for me– I’ve added no new listings to The Online Books Page this past week, for instance– but even on vacation, as long as I have a working Internet … Continue reading →

Posted in failure, online books, people, preservation | Comments Off on Persistence

In which I finally buy an ebook

Posted on July 30, 2012 by John Mark Ockerbloom

In my last post, I discussed why I wanted to buy ebooks I could truly own, and my subsequent attempts to buy such a  copy of John Scalzi’s Redshirts from a readers’-rights-friendly retailer.  I initially had a hard time finding … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, formats, online books, reading, science fiction | 8 Comments