Milestones: Over One Million Card Catalog Records Digitized in Copyright Public Records System Pilot

From the Library of Congress “Creativity at Work” Blog:

This summer, the Copyright Office reached a new milestone in our modernization efforts: surpassing one million card catalog records digitized with searchable metadata and added to the Office’s Copyright Public Records System (CPRS) pilot. As the number of card catalog entries in CPRS continues to grow, now is a good time to revisit the Office’s digitization efforts and explain how to read a registration application card.

Researchers from all over the country and the globe rely on the public record the Office maintains and manages. The Copyright Reading Room oversees approximately thirty-five million items, amounting to the most complete and accurate collection of copyright records of ownership in the world. From researching ownership to determine if a work is in the public domain or for licensing purposes, to identifying unpublished works by a particular artist, to investigating whether your ancestors registered any creative works during their lifetime, the Office maintains the record of creative endeavors in the United States.

CPRS is a pilot running in parallel to our legacy Copyright Public Catalog, and it will eventually become the official public record of copyright information in the United States.¹ CPRS uses a more powerful search engine than the Public Catalog, provides easy filtering capabilities, and follows user-centered design principles that align with the Office’s expanding Enterprise Copyright System (ECS). Users can easily conduct searches in CPRS by keyword, name, and title and conduct advanced searches using detailed registration and recordation filters.

Users can visit CPRS and begin searching the Office’s records today!

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