Civil War News
18
May 2020
Smithsonian Institute: Open Access Images
Fort McAllister map.
Smithsonian Open Access Search Page Public Domain: “The realm embracing property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to appropriation by anyone.” Thanks Merriam-Webster! With the passing of each year, previous works may enter the public domain. For example, as of 2020, works published in 1924 expired unless renewed. In February 2020, the Smithsonian Institute, through its Open Access platform, announced the release of 2.8 million images into the public domain; their collection totals over 155 million objects, and digitization on some of these holdings will continue over the coming years. The Smithsonian plans to release an additional 200,000 images throughout 2020. To learn more about the entire project, visit https://collections.si.edu. Researchers of the American Civil War will benefit from these vibrant images. To begin a search, visit https://collections. si.edu/search/. This page will serve as the foundation, and also highlights specific collections from various repositories within the Smithsonian family of museums and archives. Searching for “Civil War,” using the quotation marks in the search, will produce targeted results. As of mid-March 2020, this search yielded 19,816 results. Users will see several ways to narrow the search results, including by media type, topic, name, culture, language, place, date, etc. The Smithsonian offers the following search tip example,
which this writer customized for the subject under study. See additional search instructions at https://collections.si.edu/search/ tutorial.htm#search-tips. Looking for photographs of the Civil War from the 1860s. 1. Use: “Civil War” as your search term, 2. Apply Online Media narrow by “images” in the left
Search result subcategories.
column, 3. Apply Type narrow by “Photographs” in the left column, 4. Apply Date narrow by in the left column, look for the 1860s. Applying these parameters reduces the number of results to 1,549. One can determine the next steps based on the scope of
Atlanta, Georgia, As It Appeared on the Entrance of the Union Army under General Sherman, Sept. 2, 1864.
Colonel John S. Mosby, taken in 1864.