SULAIR Books in the Public Domain

This project is an ongoing initiative to digitize high-circulating books held by SULAIR that are in the public domain. Our goal is to provide Stanford readers with a digital option for public domain materials that have been frequently used in the past.

Digital Library Systems and Services analyzed Stanford circulation records for books published before 1923, and thus in the public domain, to identify older titles with the highest circulation. For these older "top circulators" we assessed the feasability of quick digitization. Material found to be fragile, or part of a large set that could not be accomodated in an initial pilot program, was not digitized at this time. Since the major criterion is Stanford readers' needs as expressed directly by past circulation records, we have not made any attempt in this pilot project to assess whether other editions might be preferred for other reasons.

The first sample of titles digitized as part of this effort can be found at Stanford's ebrary site.