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:
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Title/name of work
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Author/creator
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Source(s)
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Declaration
For example:
- 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.