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GHS 210: Freedom and Movement

Guidelines:

These guidelines apply for items with a public domain declaration that you find via Wikimedia Commons or other sources.

For these items, you are expected to adhere to Public Domain best practices for attribution/citation by listing three elements followed by a public domain declaration:

  • Title/name of work 

  • Author/creator

  • Source(s)

  • Declaration

 

For example:

Screenshot of the Smithsonian Collections' digital object page for an albumen print of Harriet Tubman.  Shows a black and white portrait of Harriet Tubman accompanied on the right by a list of object details including the creator (Tarby Studios), the preferred credit line (Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Charles L. Blockson), and a link to the original catalog record for the item.

  • Title: Albumen print of Harriet Tubman
  • Creator: Tarby Studios
  • Source: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Charles L. Blockson
  • Declaration: Public Domain (CC0)

Image Attribution:

Albumen print of Harriet Tubman by Tarby Studios from the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Charles L. Blockson is in the Public Domain (CC0).

Note the hyperlinks:

  • "Albumen print of Harriet Tubman" is hyperlinked to the Smithsonian page from which the image of the object was taken.
    • In this case, there is no separate creator page to link to for "Tarby Studios."
    • Even though the Smithsonian notes the nationality of creators and identified people within their digitized collections, it is not necessary to list "American" after "Tarby Studios" in your attribution.
  • "collection of the Smithsonian..." is hyperlinked to the GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) provided as the original collection record for the source on the object page.
  • "CC0" is hyperlinked to the public domain dedication from Creative Commons.
    • You could also link to the Wikipedia page on the Public Domain, but the Smithsonian metadata lists "CC0" specifically, so the link chosen was the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration page.

Include public domain attributions in the image caption field or on the same page where the image/media is being inserted.


If you make modifications to the work, you will need to expand the attribution to include the changes you made.

See Examples of Best Practice Attribution


Exceptions:

  • If the image/media comes from your technology tool, or a free search embedded in your technology tool, then no additional citation is necessary.
  • If you embed the image/media, and the embedded content automatically links back to its host site (such as a YouTube video), you do not need to provide additional citation.

Public Domain Images

Image attribution: 1710 moll by Herman Moll, from Princeton University Library's To the Mountains of the Moon: Mapping African Exploration, 1541-1880 is in the Public Domain.

Note: There was no user page to link to Herman Moll.

On the ground looking directly up at the Statue of Liberty.

Citation: Statue of Liberty by Free-Photos is used under CC0. OR Statue of Liberty by Free-Photos is in the public domain.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Joachim Prinz pictured, 1963

Citation: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Joachim Prinz pictured, 1963 is from the Center for Jewish History, NYC. No known copyright restrictions.

Note: This has a really long title. It could be shortened if needed. Also, the language on the page was "no known copyright restrictions, so that was kept the same in the citation.

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