New Blog From the Library of Congress: "Copyright Matters: Digitization and Public Access"

News from the U.S. Copyright Office/Library of Congress.
About the New Copyright Matters: Digitization and Public Access Blog:

[The blog is to support] The Copyright Digitization and Public Access project, a long term effort to convert non-digital records of copyright ownership and transfers and assignment of rights and to make them widely available online via the web. We’re planning periodic posts with information about plans and progress and we welcome your input and comments.

The first blog post was written by Maria Pallante, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, has a brief introductory post on LC’s new  blog titled, “Public Access to Historical Records.”

Current records dating back to 1978 are available online and searchable at www.copyright.gov/records. The Office’s records date back to 1870, however, and many pertain to works still under copyright protection. These records are the focus of our current digitization efforts. This is an ambitious project that I announced recently as one of several priorities and special projects the Copyright Office is undertaking. To date nearly 13 million index cards from our card catalog and over half of the 660 volume Catalog of Copyright Entries have been scanned, and the images have been processed through quality assurance and moved to long-term managed storage.
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The Copyright Office historical catalog serves as the mint record of American creativity, and there are great benefits to making the collection accessible online. We know that working collaboratively will ensure that the final product best meets the needs of the widest audience of users. I hope you will subscribe to our project blog at http://blogs.loc.gov/copyrightdigitization/ and visit our project web page at www.copyright.gov/digitization from time to time. Most of all, I hope that you will be an active partner in this important effort.

Direct to Copyright Matters: Digitization and Public Access

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