Deep Backfile project page

In the Penn Libraries Deep Backfile project, dozens of people who work at the Penn Libraries have researched copyrights of serials in our collection, so we can identify ones that are in the public domain and can be shared freely with the world. We're publishing our findings on the Web, through web pages and JSON structured data files linked with Wikidata.

Update: Copyright information for all of the serials that Penn Libraries staff researched during the 2020-2021 library building closures are now published on the Web as linked data, and free online issues of these serials that staff identified are also now linked from The Online Books Page. More information on our recent milestones can be found in this August 2024 post on Everybody's Libraries. Thank you to all Penn Libraries folks who participated in this project!

Basic information

• "Invitation to participate in a new project: Help open journals’ deep backfiles" by John Mark Ockerbloom is a post from his Everybody's Libraries blog explaining the basic goals of the project, before it expanded into a Penn Libraries project for library staff.
• The Deep Backfile data page links to the main information tables being produced by the project. Penn library workers are mainly filling in the Penn Libraries deep backfiles table, but the other tables are also getting populated with information as project work progresses.
• Our guide "Determining copyright status of serial issues" describes a process for using the data we're collecting in determining whether a particular serial issue is in the public domain or under copyright in the United States.

Project documentation and training materials

Copyright research

• "Doing serials copyright research" gives general instructions for people doing initial copyright research on our serials. We also have an illustrated quick reference, and more detailed information on how to answer questions on the form that gets filled out.
• We have Powerpoint slides for our first training workshop and our followup workshop. We also made recordings of these workshop sessions and other documentation available in an internal Box folder.

Wikidata editing

• "Establishing serial Wikidata records for Penn's Deep Backfile" gives general instructions for people creating Wikidata entries for Deep Backfile serials that don't yet have them. We also have an illustrated quick reference for this work.
• The Penn Libraries Wikidata Pilot Project includes Wikidata work for the Deep Backfile project among the work that the Penn Libraries is doing as part of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging's Wikidata pilot.

Copyright JSON files

• "JSON copyright information records" documents the structure and usage of the JSON files that encode our copyright data.
• Bulk access to the project's JSON copyright files can be obtained via this Github repository folder. Individual files are also downloadable from this site, via the various Deep Backfile data tables and other links.

Presentations and media coverage

• Engaging With the Public Domain: Scaling Up the Deep Backfile Project by John Mark Ockerbloom and Rachelle R. Nelson was presented at the 2020 Digital Library Federation Forum on November 9, 2020. Slides and a transcript are now available, as is a presentation recording.
• "Copyright Free" by Louisa Shepard, Penn Today, November 12, 2020 is a description of the project, with illustrations, in an official University of Pennsylvania publication.
• Wikidata and the Penn Deep Backfile by John Mark Ockerbloom, Beth Picknally Camden, and Jim Hahn, was presented at the March 18, 2021 meeting of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Wikidata Pilot group. Slides are available, as well as a presentation recording and a meeting chat transcript.
• Opening Our Deep Backfiles: Identifying Open and Public Domain Serial Content in Library Collections by John Mark Ockerbloom and Rachelle R. Nelson was presented at the 2021 North Carolina Serials Conference on April 9, 2021. Slides with a script for our talk are now available.
• Opening Access to Post-1926 Serials in Hathitrust by John Mark Ockerbloom, Kristina Hall, Jonah McAllister-Erickson, Nicolle Lynne Nicastro, and Scott Pope was a presentation and workshop at the 2022 HathiTrust Community Week on July 13, 2022. We have slides available, and may link to a recording later on. Other resources used in the workshop include a set of artwork renewals to proofread (eventually resulting in this Project Gutenberg publication), a Deep Backfile table for selected US serials in Hathitrust, and a Jamboard for brainstorming and discussing content to prioritize.
• Free the Sources! was a lightning talk by John Mark Ockerbloom given at Wikipedia Day at the Columbia School of Journalism on January 14, 2024, giving a brief introduction to the project geared towards Wikipedia editors.

Credits

• Project leader: John Mark Ockerbloom
• Project manager: Rachelle Nelson
• Senior management support: Beth Picknally Camden, Joe Zucca, Emily Morton-Owens
• Alma query support: Andy Sarno
• Web style support: Leslie Vallhonrat
• Early testing and project work: Alison Miner
• Copyright research: Scott F Andrews, Eli Baum, Kirby Bell, Nat Bender, Jenell Breitenbach, Ed Deegan, Lloyd Frank, Felice Gollotti, Shelton Henderson, Catherine Hinton, Shawn Jasper, Erica Lu, Eri Mizukane, Joseph Kishman, Kelsey LeClair, Edith Mulhern, Ken Raining, Paul Ryersbach, Mallika Sircar, Iren Sokolova, Pete Sullivan, Tim Wells, Michael Wisniewski, Min Zhong
• Wikidata coordination: Jim Hahn
• Wikidata editing: Nicky Agate, Kathleen Burlingame, Mary Hyde, Eun Lee, Steve Mantz, Holly Mengel, Jackie Parascandola, Jasmin Shinohara, Emma Thomson, Mike Williams
• Online Books record creation assistance: Jie Li

Thank you all!

The Deep Backfile Project is an initiative of the Penn Libraries and The Online Books Page. OBP copyrights and licenses.