Free from the New York Public Library: Digital Archive of 180,000 Files
Posted on January 10, 2016 at 3:28 pm
The New York Public Library is one of the world’s great repositories and now 180,000 items in its collections are available to anyone with online access.
That means everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways. The Library now makes it possible to download such items in the highest resolution available directly from the Digital Collections website.
No permission required. No restrictions on use.
To provide further inspiration for reuse, the NYPL Labs team has also released several demonstration projects delving into specific collections, as well as a visual browsing tool allowing users to explore the public domain collections at scale. These projects, which suggest just a few of the myriad investigations made possible by fully opening these collections, include:
a then-and-now comparison of New York’s Fifth Avenue, juxtaposing 1911 wide angle photographs with Google Street View; and
The public domain release spans the breadth and depth of NYPL’s holdings, from the Library’s rich New York City collection, historic maps, botanical illustrations, unique manuscripts, photographs, ancient religious texts, and more. Materials include:
Berenice Abbott’s iconic documentation of 1930s New York for the Federal Art Project
Farm Security Administration photographs by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and others
Manuscripts of American literary masters like Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne
Papers and correspondence of founding American political figures like Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison
Sheet music for popular American songs at the turn of the 20th century
WPA-era lithographs, etchings, and pastels by African American artists
Lewis Hine’s photographs of Ellis Island immigrants and social conditions in early 20th century America
Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes of British algae, the first recorded photographic work by a woman (1843)
Handscrolls of the Tale of Genji, created in 1554
Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts from Western Europe
Over 20,000 maps and atlases documenting New York City, North America, and the world
More than 40,000 stereoscopic views documenting all regions of the United States