Copyright-free! 187,000 newly available digital items from New York Public Library for remixing and reuse
The New York Public Library maintains a treasure trove of digitized materials from its special collections and has recently made all out-of-copyright materials available as high-resolution downloads. The intent is to facilitate sharing, research and reuse by scholars, artists, educators, technologists, publishers, and Internet users of all kinds. No permission required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!
NYPL Labs has created a new Remix Residency for artists, information designers, software developers, data scientists, journalists, digital researchers, and others to make transformative and creative uses of digital collections and data, and the public domain assets in particular (demonstration projects).
A few highlights of the collections:
- Berenice Abbott's iconic documentation of 1930s New York for the Federal Art Project
- WPA-era lithographs, etchings, and pastels by African American artists
- Anna Atkins' cyanotypes of British algae, the first recorded photographic work by a woman (1843)
- Over 20,000 maps and atlases documenting New York City, North America, and the world
- More than 40,000 stereoscopic views documenting all regions of the United States