Search Engines & Online Sites for Public Domain Materials

by Judy Druse
WU Curriculum Resources Librarian

Note: Always check the copyright information on the sites listed below as conditions of use may change. When using public domain images, you cannot copy from another’s copy. You must go to the source and make your own copy of a public domain image because the copy of a public domain image may be copyright protected.

Search Engines

Google: http://images.google.com -  Search for images

Altavista: http://www.altavista.com -  Search for images, MP3/audio, and video

Alltheweb: http://www.alltheweb.com - Search for pictures, video, and audio

Teoma: http://www.teoma.com  - Teoma offers suggestions to refine and narrow your search

Non-government Resources

American History Public Domain Images: http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/histlink.htm

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm - Contains digital documents in the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy, and government. Avalon documents may be used on a website or in a classroom for any educational or non-commercial purpose.

Colorado Digitization Project: http://www.cdpheritage.org - All materials are in the public domain or cleared for public distribution.

The Digital Media Bank: http://www.csuchico.edu/lcmt/dmb/imagesources.html

Finding Public Domain Texts, Images and Music: http://www.lawrence.edu/library/guides/pubdomain.shtml

Graphic Maps: http://www.graphicmaps.com/graphic_maps.html - All outline maps and map tests may be used for any educational application whatsoever.

Ibiblio - The Public’s Library and Digital Archive: http://www.ibiblio.org/collection.html -

Images of American Political History: http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist - A collection of over 500 public domain images with no restrictions on their use.

Kansas State University Image Resources: http://www.ksu.edu/academicservices/intprop/pub_domain_materials.htm

Medical Images on the Web: http://www.unmc.edu/library/eresources/medimage.html - Many of these images may be used free for teaching and educational purposes.

MERLOT’s Multimedia Resources: http://www.merlot.org -  A free and open resource for online learning materials

Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.net/index.shtml

Music-Related Graphic Images: http://www.skdesigns.com/internet/music/images - These images may be used for non-commercial personal use or for commercial use as long as a link is provided to their website.

The Picture Collection Online: http://digital.nypl.org/mmpco - Includes 30,000 digitized, public domain images from books, magazines, and newspapers created before 1923.

US Federal Government Public Domain Images: http://stellar-one.com/public/us_federal_government_public_domain_images.htm

University of Minnesota Duluth – Public Domain Resources: http://www.d.umn.edu/lib/copyright/webres.html#publicresources

Wikipedia: Public Domain Image Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources

US Government Resources

American Memory – Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ - Not all materials are in the public domain, but copyright and other restrictions are noted.

Department of Agriculture: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos

Department of the Interior – Maps & Photo Library Resources: http://www.doi.gov/maps/maps.html & http://www.doi.gov/oirm/photolib/

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – Photo Library & Maps: http://www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary/index.jsp & http://www.fema.gov/maps.shtm

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - NASA images are generally not copyrighted. You may use NASA imagery, video and audio material for educational and informational purposes, including for photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, and Internet Web pages.

Astronaut Photography of Earth: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

JSC Digital Image Collection: http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/

Kennedy Space Center Multimedia Gallery: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/index.cfm

NASA Image Exchange: http://nix.nasa.gov/nix.cgi

NASA Multimedia Gallery: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/highlights/index.html

National Archives & Records Administration: http://www.archives.gov/ - Images which are in the public domain may be used without permission, but you must credit NARA as the source.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Photo Library: http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/

National Institute of Mental Health – Patient Education Materials: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/practitioners/patinfo.cfm

National Park Service – Digital Image Archives: http://photo.itc.nps.gov/storage/images/index.html

Public Health Image Library: http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/default.asp - Most of the images in the collection are in the public domain.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service – Pictures/Graphics: http://pictures.fws.gov/

U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library: http://www.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/photographic-library/photographic-library.html