SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

August 13, 2020 by Gary Price

Library of Congress Releases Digital Collection of Old Copyright (1790-1870) Submissions (Title Pages), Items From Hawthorne, Twain, Douglass and Thousands More

August 13, 2020 by Gary Price

UPDATE (Additional Coverage) September 28, 2020

Peruse the Copyright Title Pages Collection at the Library of Congress (via Fine Books & Collections)

—End Update—

From a LC Blog Post:

In celebration of copyright’s 150th anniversary this month, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division launches a new digital collection, Early Copyright Materials of the United States 1790-1870, which puts online for the first time nearly 50,000 title pages that accompanied copyright registrations dating back to the foundation of the country.

The documents — just the first wave of tens of thousands of old copyright entries that we’re digitizing — form a uniquely American record of creativity, dreams and aspirations from a world gone by. The title pages sent in by authors and publishers to register their books for copyright feature serious literature, comedies, romance, true crime and plays for the theater. There are works on religious instruction, how-to books and educational texts. There are also applications for inventions, sheet music, prints, photographs and illustrated works of the sciences, most notably botany and zoology.

[Clip]

The documents stem from the first federal copyright laws in 1790 and 1831. They contain the earliest copyright records and materials that were held by the federal district courts and numerous government offices in D.C. The Copyright Act of 1870 — the birth of modern copyright law — consolidated previous records. The old entries were sent to the Library where they have since resided, nestled away in archival boxes, some scarcely seeing the light of day in 230 years. The Library, of course, has been home to the U.S. Copyright Office since 1897. It houses the modern records.

Learn More, Read the Complete Blog Post. View Images

From the Digital Collection Website:

Some of the titles will be readily recognized as founding publications which helped to establish American thought and sensibilities. However, many of the items in the collection were never published or have been lost to history due to their obscurity. Further, because copyright registration preceded publication, many registrations do not correspond to a published work, and these “ghost books” offer a fascinating glimpse of a “what if” in American cultural history. This digital representation allows for these items to be discovered anew. There are endlessly interesting items to be intrigued by and charmed by and many new connections and discoveries to be made.

In total, the Early Copyright Materials Collection consists of over 800 ledgers and assorted volumes of copyright related works. This release offers over 96,000 images of unbound title pages which were submitted along with copyright registrations, (the registrations themselves will be included in future releases). Digitized from front to back, all writing and notations have been captured. All told, there are approximately 48,000 individual title pages organized chronologically in fifty digital groupings. Some exceptions to this organization occur with oversized and miscellaneous groupings placed found at the end of the digital run. Full text search capability allows researchers to mine the collection in specific areas of interest. Future digital releases will present the collection of over 800 volumes of copyright registrations and related materials in its entirety.

Direct to Early Copyright Records Collection, 1790 to 1870

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Libraries, News

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Recent Articles on LJ

Tour de France: A Watching, Reading, and Listening Guide | Your Home Librarian

There Are No Lanes: Rural Libraries Do It ALL | Backtalk

Proud Boys Disrupt Drag Queen Story Time at San Lorenzo Library

Texas A&M Restructures Library Roles, Rescinds Librarian Tenure

Dartmouth Repatriates Samson Occom Papers to Mohegan Tribe

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

ACLU: "It’s 2022 and Two Books Are on Trial for 'Obscenity'"

From the ACLU: …last month, a Virginia resident initiated obscenity proceedings against two acclaimed books: Gender Queer, a Memoir, by Maia Kobabe, an autobiographical graphic novel that depicts the author’s ...

U.S. Patent Research: USPTO Announces Patent Center to Fully Replace Legacy Public PAIR System This Summer

From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Beginning August 1, 2022, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patent Center system—available to the public since 2017—will fully replace the legacy ...

Roundup (June 29, 2022)

Elsevier’s Acquisition of Interfolio: Risks and Responses GPO to Discontinue Assigning Library of Congress Classification Numbers in Records for Hearings and Reports (via FDLP) New Board Members for CLOCKSS New ...

Nat Geo Report: "The Great Hunt for the World's First LGBTQ Archive"

From National Geographic: In the early 1990s, a Canadian student named Adam Smith opened a dumpster in the basement of his apartment building in Vancouver, Canada, and discovered a stack ...

2022 Google Scholar Metrics Released

From the Google Scholar Blog: Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of rec. This release covers articles published in 2017–2021 and ...

New Video Recording From Rare Book School: "Making and Reading Indigenous Archives"

The Rare Book School (U. of Virginia) video embedded below (a National Endowment for the Humanities-Global Book Histories Initiative Lecture by Kelly Wisecup) was recorded on June 15, 2022. From ...

Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to Become a Public-Interest Non-Profit Organization

From a W3C Release: The World Wide Web Consortium is set to pursue 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The launch as a new legal entity in January 2023 preserves the core mission ...

Julie Mosbo Ballestro Appointed University Librarian at Texas A&M University

Full Text of a Texas A&M University Libraries Announcement: We are pleased to announce the appointment of Julie Mosbo Ballestro as University Librarian and Assistant Provost of University Libraries at ...

New Report From EBLIDA: "First European Overview on E-Lending in Public Libraries"

From an EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations) Post: EBLIDA is laying the foundation for “sustainable copyright” in public libraries through the publication of the “First European ...

New Funding: Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Awarded $850,000 by Mellon Foundation to Support the Advancement of...

From a DPLA Announcement: Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce an $850,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support its effort to advance racial justice in ...

New From COPIM: "WP7 Scoping Report on Archiving and Preserving OA Monographs"

From the Report: Technical methods for effectively archiving complex digital research publications and for creating an integrated collections of content in different formats have not yet been developed. As part ...

Roundup (June 27, 2022)

Coherent Digital Launches South Asia Archive on the Coherent Commons Platform The Longest-Running Queer News Radio Show Is Headed to the Library of Congress (via NPR) University of Cambridge Now ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW INFODOCKET ON TWITTER

Tweets by @infodocket

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.