Category Archives: sharing

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 →

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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 →

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Milestones for the Deep Backfile project

Posted on August 13, 2024 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Back in 2020 and 2021, while the Penn Libraries were largely closed, many of our librarians worked from home on the Deep Backfile project that I’ve written about here before. Faced with more demand than ever for online access to … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, libraries, serials, sharing | 1 Comment

July 4 and the power of words

Posted on July 4, 2024 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The history of online books is intertwined with the history of Independence Day. It was on July 4, 1971 that Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, was inspired to enter into a computer a copy of the Declaration of … Continue reading →

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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 →

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Public Domain Day countdown on public social media networks

Posted on November 2, 2022 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’m starting my countdown today to Public Domain Day, when a year’s worth of copyrights in many countries expires on January 1. In the US, we’ll be getting works that were copyrighted in 1927, and whose copyrights were consistently maintained … Continue reading →

Posted in publicdomain, sharing | 3 Comments

Public Domain Day 2019: Welcome to 1923!

Posted on January 1, 2019 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Early this morning, a full year’s worth of published works were welcomed into the public domain in the United States for the first time since 1998. Hundreds of thousands of works from 1923 either joined the public domain here, or … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, open access, sharing | 2 Comments

Why pay for what’s free? Finding open access and public domain articles

Posted on October 23, 2018 by John Mark Ockerbloom

[Another version of this post appears on PennLibNews, as part of the Penn Libraries’ celebration of Open Access Week.] It happens to most researchers all too often.  You see a reference or a link to an article that you’d love … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, libraries, open access, serials, sharing | 9 Comments

Public domain serials: Renewal inventory complete!

Posted on June 15, 2018 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’m pleased to announce an important milestone in the IMLS-funded project I’m leading to help open access to 20th century public domain serials.  We now have a complete, openly published inventory of all serials with active issue or contribution renewals … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, metadata, open access, serials, sharing | 3 Comments

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