The public domain continues to expand with new content, now digitized by several services and available to the general public at no cost. Several online repositories and their accessibility features will be evaluated.
Age of content
This article reviews websites that host public domain content, not the content itself. Utilize alternatives for more up-to-date information for projects or research if necessary. Current United States government or state documents are an exception since they immediately enter the public domain.
Website and resource accessibility
Public domain archives often have modern, accessible websites. However, older out of print media that has been digitized may be the only means to access a resource. Some documents have been digitized to preserve them since they are deteriorating.
Text transcription has become a more common strategy to preserve older books and documents. In theory, any accessibility software or device has a very high chance of correctly interpreting a text transcript. In practice, a scanned source may be inaccessible because of inherent technology limitations and anything that has been human transcribed may have transcription errors because handwritten text can sometimes be difficult to interpret. Automated machine reading by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) may not always produce an accurate result, especially for older or handwritten documents that a machine has trouble interpreting. In a best-case scenario, fully accessible digitized books may be human-edited, corrected, or transcribed to yield a usable resource. As a workaround, obtaining a republished, adapted copy in a suitable accessible format may be preferable, particularly if the desired media has prolific distribution since public domain works can be republished.
Digital editions of books vary in quality and, at minimum, may consist of scans from an older low-quality physical copy. Digitized movies may lack subtitles that are now standard. Archived versions of websites may have broken navigation or unusable links, alternative text, or images.
Content hosting services
This article reviews several well-known repositories that archive content. The services discussed affiliate with other institutions and libraries to digitize media, host content, and have additional helpful tools and accessibility features. Some services provide additional restricted access for accessibility reasons. Other websites that provide access or interfaces to public domain content often link back to larger repository services with actual copies.
HathiTrust
HathiTrust has a reliable, accessible interface. Advanced options beyond search include the full text of an item or library catalog search with contextual help provided. Technical issues are clearly disclosed. The service states that books scanned by machine OCR may have the incorrect or missing text and provides a link to inform technical support if OCR exhibits severe problems. OCR processing has been limited to English language works. Accessibility information for HathiTrust can be found at the bottom of the website. The website states that it meets United States Federal Section 508 standards along with the W3C standards WCAG 2.1 at levels A and AA.
HathiTrust has additional features enabled by logging in through an affiliated institution, especially for users located in the United States. Features may include full access to licensed work. For users who are members of select affiliates and are disabled, the Accessible Text Request Service provides a full copy of any copyrighted book for use with adaptive software.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive has a mission of providing access to a scholarly audience, the general public, and the print disabled. The site fulfills its mission through several smaller projects and collections that can all be found on its homepage.
The archive has an online library where public domain books can be downloaded without restriction, and some modern books can be borrowed. This collection continually expands. An additional restricted site exists to provide full access to digitized books for anyone with print disabilities.
Previous copies of websites are available through their Wayback Machine Project and the organization has actively identified and archived other important websites. However, certain features of an archived website may be broken or inaccessible.
Select television news broadcasts can be searched by existing closed captions.
Anyone with a free, registered account can upload media and contribute to any collection, including websites, books, videos, music, audio, software, and images. Popular collections are prominently featured on their home page. Personal testimonials speak to the accessibility of this site and its content.
Google Books
Google Books hosts free (public domain) and paid digital offerings. The service has partnerships with select libraries to provide financial and technological support to digitize their physical collections. OCR issues persist for older items. Help content for the service appears easy to find but lacks advanced features found on other websites. Books in the public domain can be downloaded as PDFs or EPUB files. Features to work with copyrighted books are limited and other services may have more options to download files.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg appears to have a simple design, but holds a sizable collection of media. A search bar appears on the homepage, advanced search options are hidden in a menu but do exist.
For casual browsers, bookshelves with books grouped by subject are prominently shown on the home page and rotating content suggestions are given. Aside from reading a book online, many file formats are available for download, which will assist anyone who desires to store a book on another device or open it in another application that may have accessibility features. Books will often be machine scanned so older copies or original writings may be limited by the OCR performance.
Project Gutenberg also has a self-publishing press that may be worth exploring. These books are searchable and available to download in a variety of file formats as well.
Library of Congress
Library of Congress has a secondary page dedicated exclusively to their digital collections. These are pre-assembled subject archives including a variety of media. Government documents, publications, and other public assets are placed in the public domain almost immediately after publishing. The Library of Congress provides search functionality to look up specific items in its holdings that may be accessed or downloaded. If the media has restrictions to its use, they are clearly noted.
Library of Congress holdings is focused on government documents, while other services discussed in this article preserve other media located in the public domain. However, a program run by the Library of Congress called the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled utilizes a network of affiliate libraries to provide access to any book or resource covered in its program to patrons who qualify based upon having a disability that interferes with visual access. More information and an application link can be found on the program website.
Other helpful links
Wikipedia public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_resources.
A webpage that catalogs public domain resources by subject. Maybe a useful starting point for additional research, finding resources, or just browsing. This site and link page can be edited by anyone and may include content that has been deemed questionable.
Public Domain Movies: http://publicdomainmovies.net/.
Provides access to digital copies of movies that have been released into the public domain.
Conclusion
Public domain repositories have evolved to provide access to digital copies of content. These services are online libraries. Some provide individuals with print disabilities additional access to materials that would be offered to patrons or the general public. Many sites strive to make material accessible but are limited by financial, technological, and practical constraints. As more material enters the public domain over the coming years, more resources will become available for researchers and the public.
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