A rich, robust public domain provides the building blocks of creation and culture. Works in the public domain are free to use without permission and can be reproduced, distributed, performed, translated, and reused to further education, research, and new culture.
On January 1, 2019, published works entered the public domain in the United States for the first time in 20 years. Although works published in 1923 were originally scheduled to enter the public domain in 1999, the Copyright Term Extension Act extended copyright term for 20 years, giving copyrighted works published between 1923 and 1977 an expanded term of 95 years.
In celebration of Public Domain Day, cultural heritage institutions are digitizing and making available a number of works and collections that are entering the public domain. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is gathering information about and publicizing such resources that are available in ARL member institutions. The list below will be updated weekly, while the spreadsheet that this list is based on is updated automatically.
To add your institution’s resources to the following list, please enter information about them into this form. Only ARL institutions should complete this form.
New Works in the Public Domain
All works are listed alphabetically by institution (ignoring “University of” or “The” at the beginning of institution names).
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
Honey Bunch: Just a Little Girl. [item]. Helen Louise Thorndyke. Honey Bunch series from 1923.
Honey Bunch: Her First Days on the Farm. [item]. Helen Louise Thorndyke. Honey Bunch series from 1923.
University of Kansas Libraries
Seventeen Nights with the Irish Storytellers. [item]. Edmund Murphy. A book of poetry in the form of seventeen stories, published in Baltimore in 1923.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries
MIT Libraries Public Domain Day collection. [collection]. MIT Libraries. At MIT Libraries, we’re celebrating Public Domain Day by releasing digitized copies of 100 newly public domain works from our collections. Through the month of January and all of 2019, we will be collecting stories on this page of the content we’re able to make available thanks to the public domain.
The Ohio State University Libraries
Public Domain Day 2019. [collection]. The Public Domain Project at OSU is a collaborative project between University Libraries, the School of Music, and other units across the university. The collection includes digitized musical scores, with new audio recordings (released CC0) planned throughout 2019.
University of Oregon Libraries
Public Domain Day. [collection]. Franny Gaede, Lydia Harlan, and Ann Shaffer. A brief exhibit of public domain works in University of Oregon Libraries collections in celebration of Public Domain Day 2019, built in Spotlight as a proof-of-concept for the platform.
Texas A&M University Libraries
Atlas of U.S.A. Electric Power Industry: Outlining Suggested Regional Electric Power Districts and Proposed Constant-Potential Transmission Systems for the United States of North America. [item]. Frank G. Baum. Frank Baum was a hydroelectric engineer who wrote this study to determine the best solution for the United States’ power problems and the best way to fully develop the power industry.
Lone Star Edition of the World’s Best Orations: Orators and Oratory of Texas. [item]. William Vincent Byars. This book contains speeches by fifty different historical figures in Texas’ history, including Davy Crockett, William P. Hobby, and Lorenzo de Zavala.
The Romance of Growing a Boy in Texas. Autobiographical Sketches of His Early Life as a Boy. [item]. Joseph David Aldredge. This book is the recollections of an east Texas preacher named Joseph D. Aldredge, who “lived an humble, but variegated and checkered life” in the late 1800s.
Texas Cotton Ginnings in Bales. [item]. Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. This is a map showing the number of bales of cotton produced in Texas by county, from 1922 to 1923, including the state totals, values, and average value per bale.
Virginia Tech Libraries
Cooking for Two: a Handbook for Young Housekeepers. [item]. Janet McKenzie Hill. American cooking.
Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics. [item]. Herbert S. Carter, Paul E. Howe, and Howard H. Mason. …”dietetics must be deduced in part from an accurate knowledge of the chemistry of foods and of nutrition and in greater degree from a knowledge painfully acquired by previous experience…”
Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-dish Dainties. [item]. Janet McKenzie Hill. “There is a positive need of moer widespread knowledge of the principles of cookery…” [preface]
