Discussion Questions: Photo Archiving

From this project, I gained knowledge about fair use and how to know when things are in the Public Domain. It taught me how to refine my search to pinpoint what I am looking for. It also taught me how to relate a research topic to photos and give them captions pertaining to the specific research. It also taught me how many places have digital archives and that you need to go all the way to the real collection before you can give credit to a photo.

The point of the project was to familiarize ourselves with fair use and public domain and how to recognize it and gain access to it. It was also to teach us how difficult it is to find photos pertaining to our research topic as well figuring out whether it was fair use material. Overall, this project was very frustrating and difficult. I had a difficult time finding a website that had photos in the public domain and once I did, I didn't want to contact a librarian. I'd say I have a bit better understanding of copyright after this assignment, but I got lucky by having all my photos in the public domain because they were government works that I didn't have to worry about copyright issues.

Another thing this project was useful for was that for future classes, I have many resources that I can go to for projects I may do and not worry about copyright so much.