Category Archives: preservation

Trails and tours in library online environments

Posted on March 6, 2026 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Below is the text of the lightning talk I gave at Code4Lib 2026 earlier this week, on March 3. The conference venue where I delivered it is located at 1 Dock Street in Old City Philadelphia. Links below go to … Continue reading →

Posted in censorship, citizen librarians, discovery, libraries, online books, people, preservation, teaching | Tagged | 2 Comments

Support the IMLS

Posted on March 23, 2025 by John Mark Ockerbloom

If you’ve found useful the many mid-20th century serials that are now freely readable online through The Online Books Page, you can thank the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The IMLS (as it’s generally known) funded the completion in … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, libraries, preservation, serials | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Public Domain Day advent calendar #19: Souls for Sale (photoplay) by Rupert Hughes

Posted on December 19, 2018 by John Mark Ockerbloom

“Anything you can do, I can do meta” is a quip that’s been gleefully adopted (literally or in spirit) by philosophers, geeky computer scientists, and performers.  It’s a tweak of a line from Annie Get Your Gun, a show about … Continue reading →

Posted in adventcalendar, preservation | Comments Off on Public Domain Day advent calendar #19: Souls for Sale (photoplay) by Rupert Hughes

Public Domain Day 2017: Keeping memory alive

Posted on January 1, 2017 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s a bit hard to believe, but there are now adults in the US who cannot remember a substantial Public Domain Day.  In their own lifetimes, copyrights for published works have never expired here.  But I remember when they expired … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, open access, preservation | 2 Comments

Going beyond 1922: Finding periodicals with (and without) renewed copyrights

Posted on June 16, 2014 by John Mark Ockerbloom

As mass digitization progresses, and as copyright terms grow longer, we now have access to much more literature from 1922 and the years before it than from the years that come soon after it.  This graph by Eric Crampton, based … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, libraries, metadata, preservation, serials | 2 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

My mother’s orphan

Posted on October 7, 2011 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Before my mother was pregnant with me, she was working on a book. The book had begun its gestation at least a year before. She had been teaching math in Massachusetts, and was involved with the Madison Project, one of … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, findingada, online books, open access, people, preservation, sharing, teaching | 4 Comments

Lots of conversation keeps stuff sustainable

Posted on March 23, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Among the hats I wear at my place of work is that of LOCKSS cache administrator. LOCKSS is a useful distributed preservation system built around the principle “Lots of copies keep stuff safe” (whose initials give the system its name).  … Continue reading →

Posted in libraries, people, preservation, sharing | Comments Off on Lots of conversation keeps stuff sustainable

Every book its libraries: or, Taking care in withdrawal

Posted on January 28, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The question of when to withdraw materials from libraries has gotten heightened attention lately.  Everyday readers may not always realize it, but most libraries get rid of books and other materials on a regular basis.  Libraries typically have limited space, … Continue reading →

Posted in preservation, sharing | 9 Comments

Remember this

Posted on October 5, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I am eating a sandwich at the end of Pier 14 in San Francisco.  The sun has set behind the downtown skyscrapers, and the colors in the sky are slowly fading to grey.  I’m not the only diner out here.  … Continue reading →

Posted in people, preservation, sharing | 2 Comments