Blog

  • North Carolina History

    ibiblio is maintained at UNC-Chapel Hill, and being based in NC, it has a large collection of resources on North Carolina history. I’ve compiled a list of historical websites related to events or periods in North Carolina that span over two centuries and range from east to west. Read about them below to find something to explore!

    Excavating Occaneechi Town

    Created by UNC Press, this site from 2003 was updated in 2021 and details the historic Occaneechi tribe and archaeologists’ excavation of their village. There is a ton of information about the artifacts that were found and an interesting background section on the history of the Occaneechi.

    Oxford Orphanage

    The Oxford Orphanage of Oxford, NC (now the Masonic Home for Children) was the first permanent orphanage in North Carolina. It was founded in the mid-nineteenth century and sought to educate and care for poor and orphaned children. You can read about the long history of the orphanage, view photos, and read staff interviews all on the site.

    Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    The first burial at the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery was in 1798, and it is still an important part of UNC’s campus today. Produced by UNC students, this page houses photos and resources related to the cemetery, a summary of its history, and a list of historical burials.

    Broken Arrow: Goldsboro, NC

    Check out this site to learn more about the two hydrogen bombs that were accidentally dropped on Faro, NC in 1961. Luckily the bombs did not detonate, but the full story is worth a read!

    WWI Detainees in Hot Springs, NC

    This archive features photos by Adolph Thierbach, a detainee of the Mountain Park Hotel where German civilians were being held between 1917 and 1918. He documented the time he spent in Hot Springs and later created a photobook to organize all of his pictures. Many photos, along with translated captions, are available thanks to the Madison County Library of North Carolina.

    Documenting the American South

    DocSouth is an initiative sponsored by UNC Libraries with materials on Southern history and culture that are great for students, teachers, researchers, and history enthusiasts. There are collections about the Civil War, colonial settlement, the evolution of Christianity in Southern Black culture, the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and so many more topics. You can browse more specific subjects with their index as well!

    Further Reading

    To learn more about North Carolina, you can browse the North Carolina Culture tag in ibiblio’s catalog.

  • The Public Domain

    What is the public domain?

    Works that are in the public domain are not subject to copyright laws and are accessible to anyone and everyone! They can be copied, quoted, adapted, or distributed with no permission needed. In 2022 in the United States (which uses a 95-year copyright term), copyrights on works such as books, movies, musical compositions, and sound recordings from 1926 have expired and are now available to the public. Classics like Winnie the Pooh, Bambi, and The Sun Also Rises are among the thousands of works that entered the public domain this year (Duke).

    In other parts of the world, works come into the public domain after the date of the author’s death plus a certain number of years. In the European Union, works by authors who died in 1951 will go into the public domain this year since they have a life-plus-70 year term. Similarly, Canada has a life-plus-50 year term (Duke).

    While some works come into the public domain after their copyright has expired, there are a few materials that are ineligible for copyright. In the United States, government works, grammatical rules, ideas, scientific and mathematical principles and theories, and compilations of facts (such as recipes or phone books) are all immediately in the public domain once published (University of California).

    Why is the public domain important?

    The Duke Center for the Study of Public Domain is a fantastic source for learning about what the public domain is, what it includes, and why it matters! Here are some of the ways the Center has listed for why the public domain is beneficial to everyone:

    Inspiration for new works: Film and theatrical adaptations of classic tales, fictional retellings, and sampled songs are all possible because of the public domain. Many famous and beloved Disney movies are the product of the public domain, as it is a source of creative inspiration for storytellers and artists everywhere.

    Access to education: Materials in the public domain are free to anyone and are easy to access both online and offline. Instead of having to buy texts or wait for them to become available at public libraries, texts in the public domain can be found on the internet in unlimited quantities. However, if you still want a hard copy of a certain work, it will most likely be a lot cheaper than something that is still restricted under copyright laws, since anyone can publish their own edition of the text. Using works without copyright restrictions reduces textbook costs for college students and makes materials easier to locate; it also allows for annotated editions and updated translations to be published.

    Public domain works on ibiblio

    ibiblio hosts many sites that house collections of works that are included in the public domain, including photos, books, clipart, magazines, and music!

    WPClipart: WPClipart offers over 90,000 images that are free to download and use, with categories such as animals, food, buildings, famous people, flags, and travel. There is also a small collection of children’s books.

    New Zealand Section 27: This is an interesting legal archive featuring reports and other documents published by the government of New Zealand throughout the 20th century. While it may be a niche source, it demonstrates the scope of the public domain and is a great way to learn about NZ history.

    Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks that includes classics, philosophy, science, general fiction, and more. Each text is proofread and available for download in a variety of digital formats. This is a great resource for students, teachers, and all literature enthusiasts!

    Musopen: Musopen is a classical music source that provides copyright-free sheet music, audio recordings, and musical education resources like textbooks and apps for students and teachers. Browse the catalog here! *alumni — no longer hosted by ibiblio*

  • Time Machine: NASA’s Educational Media Archive

    nasa.ibiblio.org was created in the late 1990s as a collection of scientific resources for everyone ranging from kindergarteners to adults. The site includes over 580 videos from NASA’s Center for Distance Learning and includes topics like aeronautics, mathematics, technology, and space transportation. Teacher guides and web activities are also included with many of the videos!

    While the archive can no longer be accessed through its URL, you can still view it by using the Wayback Machine. This is a project by Internet Archive that allows users to view past versions of webpages. You can access the snapshots of NASA’s Educational Media Archive here!

    Many of the videos cannot be accessed directly through nasa.ibiblio.org’s instance on the Wayback Machine, but NASA’s Langley Research Center has posted them separately on the Internet Archive! You can find those videos here, or by searching for creator:”NASA LaRC Office of Education” on the Internet Archive homepage. 

    For recent K-12 STEM resources, check out NASA Langley Education, which collaborated with ibiblio to create nasa.ibiblio.org.