Public Domain on Nic Babarskis

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 07:32:50 -0400

Perusing the Library of Congress’s September 11 research guide this morning.

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:54:26 -0400

RIP Wendell Berry:

For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do? Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.

Berry had a way of cutting through to the core.

Jason A. Heppler https://updates.jasonheppler.org/2026/09/01/berry-had-a-way-of/

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 09:44:55 -0400

Today marks the 37th anniversary of The Baltic Way (or Baltic Chain) where 2 million people joined hands across 419 miles to appeal for their right to self-governance and to resist authoritarianism. Their movement ultimately succeeded. Resist authoritarianism.

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:15:25 -0400

Featured recently on the Library of Congress’s Headlines & Heros blog: The Journalist. @onthemedia.bsky.social before podcasting or public radio.

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:53:27 -0400

Zotero just dropped their update from version 9 to 10 and I am once again in awe that you can just download this software for free and utilize almost every single feature on device or through a self-hosted server.

Announcing Zotero 10, with powerful new features for searching and managing your library, a major improvement to Read Aloud, and a new Reading Mode for PDFs
https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-10/
Zotero https://fosstodon.org/@zotero/117112205045153094

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:30:00 -0400

Seeing these sorts of artifacts makes me wonder about what archives will be featuring 500 years into our own future as our feeble attempts at understanding the cosmos.

A blog about planetaria housed in the Library of Congress::

Armillary spheres are the oldest of the three main planetaria. Used by ancient astronomers, they consist of small round balls representing either the Sun or Earth, surrounded by interlocking, solid rings representing planetary orbits, the zodiac, constellations, and sometimes the equator.

Nova ac generalis orbis descriptio. Caspar Vopell, 1543. Photos by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress. Geography and Map Division.

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 10:24:26 -0400

🇺🇸 From Public Domain Review for today:

Read the first edition pamphlet of Frederick Douglass' famous 1852 “What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?” speech. After he finished speaking there was “a universal burst of applause” and 700 copies of the pamphlet were subscribed to on the spot: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/frederick-douglass-fourth-july-speech #July4th

The Public Domain Review https://mastodon.social/@publicdomainrev/116862128865126340

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 10:18:48 -0400

🇺🇸 '…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.'

YouTube Video

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 14:30:18 -0400

Public Domain Review’s (@publicdomainrev@mastodon.social) Sunday Read this week features depictions of Cholera and infrastructure failure. Maybe in the face of defunding public health and deregulation we should dust off some of these prints.

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:01:15 -0400

If you love music, music history, or musical artifacts you should check out–and considering contributing too–the MI Music Experience.

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Wondering about steampunk, but for carpentry and wood based technology. Nautical culture through the Napoleonic wars would be where you start. Maybe one could include Master and Commander or Moby Dick as early examples.

Some fun photos of the Turtle from the American revolution:

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 07:52:37 -0400

When the U.S. commissioned a hymnal-esque collection of sea shanties to commemorate the Navy’s circumnavigation of the globe:

The physical manuscript is also remarkable in a variety of ways. The notation on each page is remarkably neat, rivaling some of the master composers and arrangers whose collections are held by the Music Division. Nearly every shanty also includes multiple handwritten verses, showing a variety of lyrical inspirations…

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:17:21 -0400

Dave Karpf:

If the only way to make money in comedy is to feed the algorithm, while the companies that control the algorithm scoop out most of the money, and the people who run those companies keep modifying the algorithm to cater to their own whims, then we will be a society where comedy tends toward sucking.

Same principle applies across all sorts of culture-making endeavors, and increasingly any public good that can be commodified for shareholder profit.

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:34:38 -0400

Public Domain Review highlighting works that feature Notre Dame today:

Highlights from the many centuries of artworks to feature the Notre-Dame de Paris — which caught fire 5 years ago #onthisday — from its illuminated punctuation of medieval skylines to grainy detailed studies at the birth of photography: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-notre-dame-cathedral-in-art-1460-1921

The Public Domain Review https://mastodon.social/@publicdomainrev/116408559908239505

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 16:56:48 -0400

Public Domain Review highlighting a delightful set of block prints of foreigners visiting Yokohama Japan in the 1860s-70s:

Yokohama-e (literally “Yokohama pictures”) are a type of Japanese woodblock print depicting the foreigners who flooded through Yokohama during the 1860s and 70s, in particular North Americans: https://buff.ly/2eSwcac

The Public Domain Review https://mastodon.social/@publicdomainrev/116269122273244816

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:13:34 -0400

What type of water are they irrigating those California peaches with?

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 17:03:52 -0400

Today’s Public Domain find. An image from the Library of Congress by Udo Keppler. Seems appropriate given all the tariff fueled volatility we’re experiencing.

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 17:37:03 -0400

Using today’s interesting Public Domain find to highlight open access resources related to Trans* history (yesterday was Transgender Day of Visibility). While you can access many resources online, you should check your local (or nearest college/university) library and inquire about special collections. Surfing the web is great, but engaging with tangible history in a vertical file can move the abstract to the embodied.

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:10:03 -0400

An interesting Public Domain find. This is a picture of Catharine (Cappy) Vail, member of the Women’s Airforce Services Pilots (WASP) corps. Pulled from the Library of Congress' special collection on Armed Services history.

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:07:06 -0400

An interesting Public Domain find. (I’ve always had a soft spot for roadside photography). A picture of a roadside business sign taken by John Margolies.

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 10:00:00 -0400

An interesting Public Domain find. A picture of a voter registration drive taken by John H White, as a part of his series of photos documenting Black life in Chicago.

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:31:12 -0400

An interesting Public Domain find this week. A 1940 image of a square dance in Mcintosh County, OK by Russell Lee.

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 14:18:55 -0400

By the end of this weekend we’ll most likely have received 8-12 inches of snow. So today’s public domain image is a winter scene from Joseph Morviller held by the Library of Congress:

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 17:31:18 -0400

The Public Domain Image Archive has an infinite scroll mode that can surface some intriguing stuff. I think I’ll start to occasionally post some of the more interesting things I stumble upon. Today’s image is from the Portraits of Ellis Island Immigrants collection. Three women from Guadeloupe: