Archivists struggle daily to preserve older books, artwork, music, and film in order to make knowledge and historical records available to present and future generations. From the National Archives to the town historian, archivists often deal with works near the end of their copyright terms, unavailable in the market but still valuable sources of knowledge. Society would benefit greatly if they could make these works more publicly available.
Frequently these works are near the end of their copyright terms, unavailable in the market but still valuable sources of knowledge. A huge amount of knowledge is locked up in out-of-print books with no commercial circulation. Only 400,000 different books sold even a single copy in the United States in the last year, while the Library of Congress contains 26 million different books. If even a tiny fraction of the remainder were to circulate more freely, the enhancement of knowledge would be substantial.
Here we will discuss efforts to Save Archives! by allowing works to pass into the public domain so they can be maintained and preserved. Our mission-- to allow archivists to catalog our past so it's available for our future.