[pd-discuss] Adding items to PublicDomainWorks.net

Thu Jan 6 14:51:12 UTC 2011

On 01/06/2011 09:20 AM, Jonathan Gray wrote:
> +++1, John.
>
> This is indeed what we'd like to work towards.
>
> In particular:
>
>    * Ideally we could have a drop-down menu, with information for
> different countries (based on Public Domain Calculators:
> http://wiki.okfn.org/PublicDomainCalculators )

The drop-down menu is a good idea.  Even better would be to check
where the user is located, and default to that location right off the bat
(with the drop-down offered as a backup in cases where the user wants
to see a different jurisdiction).

The user's default location could be determined by IP address, or a cookie
or other account information.  For the cookie solution, you just include
an checkbox "remember my preferred location" option by the menu, which
seeds a cookie on the user's machine.  For simple IP defaults,
there are now standard services for determining
one's likely country from the requesting IP address.  (See, e.g.,

    http://www.hostip.info/use.html

  There may well be better services out there; this was the
first I found on a quick search.)

> We'd also like to be able to edit information, and do things like add
> links to digital copies of different works.

I've already got over a million links to such copies, if you want to add
them in.  Most are provided by Hathi Trust, and about 40,000 are from my
personally edited catalog.  I can give you details on OAI-PMH feeds for both
sources if you like.

John