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Searching for Public Domain Materials on the Web

Because government documents and items published before 1924 are not restricted by copyright, web masters can make these resources available freely. Because one usually finds public domain materials at specialized sites, it is better to go to these sites directly than to use a search engine, though some directory pages list this material. Here are some large sources of public domain material.

Project Gutenberg
A library of downloadable electronic copies of books and pamphlets written before 1924. Project Gutenberg covers all subjects. The material is largely in English. There is a search engine with several options on the site, though Project Gutenberg works better when you have a specific title or author in mind.

American Memory
The Library of Congress' repository of documents, books, pamphlets, and even multimedia files, all created before 1924. One can browse by large categories, search within categories, or search the entire collection.

Thomas
Bills, legislative histories, and laws passed by the United States Congress are all available at this site as searchable full text. The search engine can be a bit daunting and it is best to know what you want before you begin a search.

Open Directory -- Arts -- Literture -- Electronic Text Archives
A listing of sites offering e-texts on a wide variety of subjects. Some are current e-texts as well as classic (public domain) books. Most sites are free and noncommercial with little advertising.

OAIster.com
"A collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources." What this means in plain English is that Oaister offers a searchable collection of electronic copies of old, rare, and academically interesting items. All of them are free to access and the site has no distracting advertisements.

Esp@cenet Your Gateway to Patents
Though one does not commonly think of it, patents are also public domain documents, and this web sites lets you search US, European, and even Japanese patents with full text retrieval as either an HTML or, more commonly, a PDF document. This site features no advertising and requires no special software beyond Adobe Acrobat Reader. Some knowledge of patents is helpful for successful searching.

Back to Searching for and Evaluating Internet Sources.

EHK -- January 2005