Copyright and Item Usage

Copyright & the IDHH

The copyright status of IDHH materials varies. Some items may be in the public domain while others may have copyright restrictions though visible to the public. To learn about the rights status for an individual item, check the “Rights” field in the metadata or, for more information, follow the link to the content provider’s website.

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Look for a Rights Statement icon for an item’s copyright status at a glance. These icons are a helpful aid but Rights Statements create no warranty as to an item’s copyright status. As always, you are responsible for your own use, obtaining proper permissions or making determinations of fair use, and ensuring the accuracy of the information.

Using Items

The ways you can reuse items from IDHH will depend both upon the copyright status of the item and any licensing restrictions placed on the item by the holding institution or copyright owner. Please do not contact the IDHH for permissions, but rather reach out to the institution that has contributed the item or items you wish to use.

Properly citing materials provides credit to the creators of primary source works and helps future researchers. Use the link available on each item page for Chicago, APA, and MLA style citations to copy and paste to a bibliography. Be sure to review the accuracy of these citations as they are computer generated and may require additional information for accuracy.

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Learn more about how you can use the collection as an educator, developer, or researcher from the DPLA.

This guide was created by Kaylen Dwyer, graduate assistant at Scholarly Communications and Publishing of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, June 2019.