Celebrating the public domain

 

Join us for Public Domain Week 2025

Join the University Libraries in celebrating the Public Domain by checking out our events that will take place during the week of March 10. The University community can also enjoy clips of movies that have recently entered the public domain that will be playing all week in the Knowledge Center’s Atrium.

Modge podge including elements of the Van Gogh painting, Wheat Field with Cypresses, and characters from Winnie the Pooh.

Coaster Collage

Recreate artwork into your own imaginative remix by transferring images onto coasters and layer on new elements to make them their very own. Register for free to attend either the 10 a.m. session on Tuesday, March 11 or the noon session on Friday, March 14.

Register for the event
The public domain Albert Haueisen, Bei der Kartoffelernte

Wikimedia Edit-a-Thon

Add public domain images from the University Special Collections and Archives to Wikimedia, helping expand their reach to others. This free event will take place at 3 p.m. on Thursday, March 13 in MIKC 114. No prior registration is needed, although we ask that you create a Wikimedia account before the event. Please see our instructions on how to do so.


Find MIKC 114
 

Exploring and performing public domain works

The works featured here have all been protected by copyright at one time but are now in the public domain. That means anyone can use them. Students can perform songs published in 1926 or earlier and publish a video of their performance on social media or use an image as part of marketing for an event. All creative works in the public domain can be reused and remixed without having to obtain prior permission. The University Libraries invited university faculty and students to perform or read from famous 1926 works, including Soldiers' Pay by William Faulkner and Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne.

  • Assistant Professor Yasmine Jahanmir speaking about musical theater from her office.
  • Cover art for Solder's Pay by William Faulkner.
  • Student's performing Gerwin's "Someone to Watch"
  • Associate Professor Katherine Fusco discussing the General and Cinder Ella
  • Poems from Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues read by Manuela Williams, MFA Poetry Candidate
  • Librarian Rosalind Bucy reading from Winnie the Pooh.

Video Credits

  • Discussion of musical theater during the 1920s by Assistant Professor Yasmine Jahanmir.
  • Excerpt from William Faulkner’s Soldiers’ Pay, read by Assistant Professor Pardis Dabashi.
  • George Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me, sung by A.J. Hunsaker, Jasmine Johnson, and Emily Koszuth; accompanied by Jerry Ray. The students are part of Prof. Katherine Parker’s Vocal Technique Class.
  • Discussion of The General and Cinder Ella by Associate Professor Katherine Fusco.
  • Poems from Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues read by Manuela Williams, MFA Poetry Candidate.
  • Librarian Rosalind Bucy reading from Winnie the Pooh.

 

Public Domain Resources

Learn more about the public domain and copyright from the University Libraries and get help on copyright-related questions.

An illustration of a striped cat beating a drum from a book of hours

Creative Commons

Allows you to search a number of sites, including various museums, for items in the public domain or with a Creative Commons license.

A black and white image of a woman in a hat next to a french bulldog

Library of Congress

Collections that it believes are in the public domain.

A person wearing a plague mask and a hat in a pink dress

The Public Domain Review

An online journal dedicated to discussion of items in the public domain.

Sheet music by Emily Josephine Troup which includes a score for voice and piano

International Music Score Library Project

Great for finding music scores in the public domain.

Illustration of three horseback riders racing on a red background

About copyright

Learn more about copyright or contact your subject librarian with copyright-related questions.