Implementing standardized rights statements in a digitized community archive

Abstract

Digitization offers an opportunity to expand access to unique historical materials in community archives but requires determining the copyright of items shared in digital collections. The copyright status of cultural heritage materials in community archives is difficult to evaluate because of limited documentation on authorship and creation date. This poster presents the findings from the study that analyzed the distribution of standardized rights statements assigned to the digitized objects in the Park County Local History Digital Archive. The process involved evaluating copyright status of published and unpublished materials and assigning standardized rights statements from http://rightsstatements.org. The types of applied rights statements and their frequency were analyzed using a Python script. The findings indicate the implementation of six different standardized rights statements and frequent use of the statements “Copyright not evaluated,” “Copyright undetermined,” and “In copyright—rights‐holder(s) unlocatable or unidentifiable.” Relatively few items were identified as being in public domain.