Wikinfo:Resources/Public Domain Content from MediaWiki

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Wikinfo Owl
Owl of Wisdom
(or is it the owl of humor?)

There are many resources available in the public domain or subject to fair use, and therefore, they are free for you to use without restrictions for your research and articles. Now, because there is no concept of public domain in Japanese copyright law, even though the materials are claimed public domain, there can be some restrictions such as about commercial use, which has a conflict with GFDL. Also, unlike the United States, most English speaking commonwealth countries exert Crown copyright, so please make certain that in any particular jurisdiction, the government agencies will allow you to copy materials without permission (Indian government sites also seem to be copyrighted by default [1] ).

These resources are valuable, but many are very old, context-dependent, or may be written from points of view, which may require editing to result in good Wikinfo articles. They may contain useful information, but also sometimes may display antiquated writing styles or errors of fact, so researcher beware!. Make sure you take some time to verify the accuracy of the information rather than dumping it on Wikinfo (we have Wikipedia for that).

Contents

Encyclopedic/General Resources

US Government

  • Most publications of the Federal Government of the United States. Under the Federal Copyright Act material that is originated by the Federal government is not subject to copyright. In some cases, material may originate with a private contractor which assigns the copyright to the agency. However, material that is generated by the Federal government which doesn't have a notice can be copied. Entries below marked "(US Federal Govt.)" belong to this category. Note this only applies to the Federal government. United States state governments can copyright materials.

Canadian Government

  • While the Canadian government claims Crown copyright there are images archives at the National Library of Canada that are in the public domain. They include:

Radios

Arte Radio broadcasts audio contents, in English, French and German, in MP3 and Real Audio format, under Creative Commons license.

Dictionaries

Others

  • Project Gutenberg See in particular The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia (although only Vol 1 of this seems to be available). Note that not all of the Project Gutenberg texts are fully in the public domain. Read the license of the respective texts carefully. "The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is a reproduction of a 1911 edition of a famous encyclopedia."
  • The 1911 version of the [[Encyclop�dia Britannica]].
  • The Household Cyclopedia
  • The Nuttall Encyclopaedia, generally short entries, mostly about people and places; probably the only encyclopedia that does have entries about characters from Dickens' works, but not about fruit.
  • The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908)
  • The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906)
This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently entered the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations. This online version contains the unedited contents of the original encyclopedia. Since the original work was completed almost 100 years ago, it does not cover a significant portion of modern Jewish History (e.g., the creation of Israel, the Holocaust, etc.). However, it does contain an incredible amount of information that is remarkably relevant today.
We are considering inviting the Internet community to help us update the encyclopedia -- if you are interested in volunteering (as a writer, editor, etc.) please join our Mailing List. By putting this important work on the Internet, we hope to improve the quality of Jewish information available online -- and stimulate new discussion. Therefore, we have "Discussion Forums" and "Internet Links" sections which allow our visitors to converse and identify related websites.
  • ibiblio.org is a major repository of information, including Wikinfo and GetMeta, among many other resources: "the public's library and digital archive". All collections on ibiblio are assumed to be in the public domain unless otherwise noted. Check for copyright notices on any material you wish to use.
  • A Pronouncing dictionary of Biography and Mythology contains a large number (10000+) short NPOV biographical entries, many of which could be copied and pasted to form stubs (due to its focus it contains information on many 19th and 18th century figures not yet covered in Wikipedia).

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Biology

Chemistry

Some parts may be non-public domain -- can anyone check this in detail with the webmasters, please? According to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/copyright.html, specific NLM Web sites containing protected information provide additional notification of conditions associated with its use. It's in PD by default.

Climate

Geology and Earth Sciences

Mathematics

Philosophy and Natural Sciences

Physics

  • Physics for Free has two public domain physics books by former Yale professor Frank Firk: one about basic physics, one about groups and particles

Biography

Geography and maps

History

Ancient History

Language and Linguistics

Political science

Psychology

  • Classics in the History of Psychology is a collection of classic public domain works in psychology collected by Christopher D. Green: see here for a note about the copyright status of the individual documents in the collection

Business and industry

  • (US Federal Govt.) US Energy Information Agency - statistics and info on energy industry (mostly US but some stuff for the world) - they appreciate but do not require acknowledgement (copyright info here)

Communication

  • (US Federal Govt.) Federal Standard 1037C, a telecommunications glossary, appears to be mostly in the public domain based on these principles, and is a source of a large number of bits of useful material. A few items are derived from copyrighted sources: where this is the case, there is an attribution to the source. Note: most non-trivial 1037C articles are now incorporated into Wikipedia -- please also note that only those articles that have substantial content and are from 100% public domain sources are suitable for inclusion in the Wikipedia
  • (US Federal Govt.) DISA site about commercial telecommunications standards From the site: "This site is maintained by the Commercial Standards Division of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to provide information about the current status of commercial telecommunications standards."

Computer science

Education

  • ERIC Digests This site has several thousand education articles. They were all produced by the US Government ERIC Clearinghouse system. All of them are also in the public domain and can be used freely for content at Wikipedia.

Employment

Engineering

Informational pamphlets, engineering manuals, engineering design guides, engineering standards, ...

Law

Medicine

Services Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Military

Public affairs

  • (US Federal Govt.) Federal Emergency Management Agency: Not sure how much of this is useful, but anyway it's under the same terms as the U.S. Department of State site: all in the public domain unless it carries an explicit copyright notice.
  • (US Federal Govt.) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: copyright notice here, typical U.S. gov't terms. Does have some good information for people patient enough to find it.
  • (US Federal Govt.) Voice Of America - All text, audio and video material produced exclusively by the Voice of America is public domain. However, some images and graphics are licensed for use and covered by all applicable copyright laws.
  • (California State Govt.) California Department Of Corrections is in the public domain unless otherwise noted. It has information and photos of California prisons such as Pleasant Valley State Prison.

Transport

Culture

Classics

Libraries

Literature

  • A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology (Jos� �ngel Garc�a Landa, University of Zaragoza, Spain)
  • OVO New works in the public domain since 1987. Magazine format (PDF and Open Office).
  • Brewer's Reader's Handbook, published in 1898, states that "the object of this Handbook is to supply readers and speakers with a lucid but very brief account of such names as are used in allusions and references, whether by poets or prose writers". Contains many short articles, some on obscure topics

Music

Recreation

Religion

Christianity:

Occultism:

Needing Resources

Applied Sciences

Statistics

Social sciences

Anthropology

Archaeology

Economics

Technology

Agriculture

Architecture

Arts and Entertainment

Cooking

Sports

Miscellaneous

  • Writings by Greg Goebel: Science, technology, military history, introductions to classical and relativistic physics
  • Infoanarchy: a weblog dedicated to copyright issues. All original material is in the public domain, although some redistributed articles may be under copyright
  • "Ethical treatment for all youth" a website that documents therapy and detention of children and juveniles for consensual sexual activity. Author wrote to Wikipedia user Eloquence in a personal email: "Certainly, I intend everything at my site to be in the public domain, to be used freely by anyone else. Of course, I would appreciate it if people who use it would link to my site, since I can use all the exposure I can get."
  • PD Times News & Resources: A Public domain resource site to provide people with a valuable source for public domain news and information and where to find public domain works. PD Times also presents to it's visitors, information on business and advertising techniques using public domain material. The core of PD Times rests solidly within the concept of providing a free and valuable cultural and historical information source for todays businesses and researchers.

Sources for Finding Resources

Here are some web searches which may prove useful in the discovery of U.S. Federal Government and other public domain documents. Please note that you must still manually verify that documents are in the public domain. Please note also that not all sites in the .gov domain are U.S. federal government sites: some may be U.S. state or other local government sites.

Google searches for links or exact phrases:

The Creative Commons initiative may become a valuable new resource for Wikipedia authors. The project provides a "wizard" for licensing information under various open content licenses (including the public domain, which is not a license). Search for information or images licensed under the Creative Commons License.

Further Reading

Lists of General Resources

Lists of U.S. Government Resources


References

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