Category Archives: sharing

Public Domain Day 2014: The fight for the public domain is on now

Posted on January 1, 2014 by John Mark Ockerbloom

New Years’ Day is upon us again, and with it, the return of Public Domain Day, which I’m happy to see has become a regular celebration in many places over the last few years.  (I’ve observed it here since 2008.)  … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, data, open access, sharing | 6 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

Updates on library linking, Wikipedia, and what you can do

Posted on March 22, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’m gratified for the positive response I’ve been getting to the Forward To Libraries service I first introduced last month.  It really took off when I announced the templates for linking to libraries from Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago.   They’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, libraries, sharing | 4 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

Building on a full complement of copyright records

Posted on July 22, 2012 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Thanks to recent efforts of the US Copyright Office, we now have a complete digitization of summary copyright registration and renewal records back to the late 19th century.  As Mike Burke and others at the Copyright Office have been reporting … Continue reading →

Posted in citizen librarians, copyright, open access, sharing | 1 Comment

Finding the (market) value in freeing books

Posted on May 28, 2012 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I list a number of books on The Online Books Page that are relatively recent copyrighted books  put online with the permission of the copyright holder.  I am very thankful to the authors and other rightsholders who have agreed to … Continue reading →

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

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

Early journals from JSTOR and others

Posted on September 23, 2011 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Earlier this month,  JSTOR announced that it would provide  free open access to their earliest scholarly journal content, published before 1923.  All of this material should be old enough to be in the public domain.  (Or at least it is … Continue reading →

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

A digital public library we still need, and could build now

Posted on June 15, 2011 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s been more than half a year since the Digital Public Library of America project was formally launched, and I’m still trying to figure out what the project organizers really want it to be.  The idea of “a digital library … Continue reading →

Posted in citizen librarians, copyright, libraries, people, sharing | 11 Comments

Open data’s role in transforming our bibliographic framework (Updated)

Posted on May 24, 2011 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve seen a fair bit of buzz of the Library of Congress’s recent announcement of a new initiative for transforming the bibliographic framework of the library community.  The announcement notes a number of recent developments that are drivers for such … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, metadata, open access, sharing | 7 Comments