Wikipedia:Public domain resources |
There are many resources available on the net that are in the public
domain, and therefore freely usable without restrictions for Wikipedia content.
There are also many copyrighted resources whose licensing terms are liberal
enough that they can generally be used as well. For these, see Wikipedia:Free or semi-free non-Public-Domain information
resources and Wikipedia:GNU Free Documentation License resources (includes
images).
This page is intended as a list of only true public domain text resources. For public domain images, see Wikipedia:Public domain image
resources.
CAVEAT: Because there is no concept of public domain
in Japan's 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. Please make certain that in any particular jurisdiction
government agencies will allow you to copy materials without permission. Indian government sites also seem to be copyrighted by
default [1] .
Please don't data dump!
The resources below are valuable, but many are very old, context-dependent, written from biased points of view, and otherwise
are not in themselves good encyclopedia articles. They contain some useful information, but also sometimes an antiquated
writing style and innumerable errors of fact.
So please, if you copy material from these sources, make sure you take some time to verify the accuracy of the information:
edit, update, introduce, or otherwise produce a good article out of it rather than just dumping it here verbatim. But if you can't do that,
put it in anyway because somebody else will come by and tweak it. Wikipedia articles are living texts, because everybody has the
power to edit them. An entry that starts out incorrect, as a stub or even as something very inane, will eventually be tweaked and
evolve into something much more sophisticated.
Encyclopedic or 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:
Dictionaries
Other
- 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: "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).
Philosophy, mathematics and natural science
Astronomy and astrophysics
Biology
- (US Federal Govt.) US Forest Service Fire Effects Database Database of current information
on a wide variety of tree, shrub, grass, mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian species found largely in North America -- great
reference material
- (US Federal Govt.) National
Center for Biotechnology Information , unless
otherwise specified (for example the text of most of the books in the book section of the site is not in the
public domain unless it is published by NIH or the NCBI) the material on this site is in the public domain (the NCBI asks you to cite NCBI as the source if you use it,
see copyright and disclaimer information ), of particular relevance for wikipedia (as a
source for text and images) are
- A
Science Primer . Background material
on cell biology, bioinformatics and more. (Please use the following msg on the relevant Talk or image description page if
you use material from this work: Template:NCBI-scienceprimer.)
- The NCBI
Handbook .
More background on genomics and bioinformatics relevant to the NCBI itself. (Please use the following msg on the relevant Talk or image
description page if you use material from this work: Template:NCBI-handbook.)
Chemistry
Note: PIHKAL and TIHKAL, formerly
listed here, are not in the public domain, and should therefore not be listed here.
ChemIDplus at http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/ appears to be a public domain database of
about 200,000 chemicals -- needs checking, though. Some parts may be non-public domain -- can anyone check this in detail
with the webmasters, please?
Climate
Geology and Earth science
Mathematics
Philosophy
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
Statistics
Social sciences
Anthropology
Archaeology
Biography
Economics
Geography and maps
- (US Federal Govt.) CIA World Factbook Contains basic facts on all the countries of the
world
- (US Federal Govt.) U.S. State Dept.: Background notes on the countries of the world . Also see their copyright
notice , which, as you'll see, places
material that is not explicitly copyrighted in the public domain
- (US Federal Govt.) [2] - Library of Congress area country studies. It explicitly
states that it is not copyrighted
- (US Federal Govt.) the NIMA www.nima.mil GEOnet Names Server
contains approximately 3.88 million named geographical features outside the United States, with 5.34 million names [3]
- (US Federal Govt.) the USGS Geographic Names Information System claims to have almost 2 million physical and
cultural geographic features within the United States
- Perry-Castańeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas (check Usage
statement and verify public domain
status)
See also: Wikipedia:Map
History
History of science and technology
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
Applied arts and sciences
Agriculture
Architecture
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: a substantial number of 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
Law
Medicine
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.
Technology
Transport
Culture
Arts and Entertainment
Classics
Cooking
Libraries
Literature
- 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:
- Lewis Spence's An Encyclopaedia of
Occultism is an extensive work on occultism which should be in the public
domain in the U.S.
Sports
Photos
- Please see Public domain image
resources
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 me 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."
To be filed
please file these resources under the appropriate topic headings above
- There are no more entries to be filed at the moment
Sources for finding public domain 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), and also features a directory of these works. (See also Creative Commons License)
Book:
Lists of general resources:
Lists of U.S. Government resources:
See also:
- Wikipedia:Free or semi-free non-Public-Domain information
resources
|