Impressive work (once again) from NYPL and NYPL Labs for not making public domain images easier to access but also for providing the tools and inspiration to remix and share the material.
There is a lot here in addition to the 187,000+ hi-resolution public domain (free to share/use/remix) images.
What’s Available
From an NYPL Blog Post:
The release of more than 180,000 digitized items represents both a simplification and an enhancement of digital access to a trove of unique and rare materials: a removal of administration fees and processes from public domain content, and also improvements to interfaces — popular and technical — to the digital assets themselves. Online users of the NYPL Digital Collections website will find more prominent download links and filters highlighting restriction-free content; while more technically inclined users will also benefit from updates to the Digital Collections API enabling bulk use and analysis, as well as data exports and utilities posted to NYPL’s GitHub account. These changes are intended to facilitate sharing, research and reuse by scholars, artists, educators, technologists, publishers, and Internet users of all kinds. All subsequently digitized public domain collections will be made available in the same way, joining a growing repository of open materials.
Access to the Public Domain Images via NYPL Digital Collections User Interface
- When you search, note box to SEARCH ONLY public domain imagery.
- You can also LIMIT search results to public domain materials (look for box, upper left side of search results page)
Tools and Programs
Cool #1! Visualize and Browse Public Domain Images via New Tool Developed at NYPL Labs
Note: Options to sort, organize images (right side of page) including by color
Note: Source code for this visualization tool is available. (via GitHub)
Cool #2: NYPL Labs Has Announced their First Remix Residency Program
NYPL Labs is pleased to announce our first Remix Residency, designed to spur transformative, interesting, beautiful new uses of our digital collections.
We are seeking submissions for projects that provide new ways of looking at or presenting public domain collections materials—or allow access to the information or beauty currently locked within the static images we’ve digitized.
Remix Residency Details, Application, Deadlines Submission Info Available Here
Three Remixes of Public Domain Images (Created by NYPL Labs)
Tools to Help Create Remixes (via Github)
Includes metadata dictionary.
See Also: New York Public Library Invites a Deep Digital Dive (via NY Times)
About Gary Price
