Welcome to Newberry Digital Collections (NDC)! This site features thousands of digitized manuscripts, maps, books, photographs, artworks, audio and video recordings, and other rare and unique materials from the collections of the Newberry, Chicago's independent research library since 1887. The content here represents only a fraction of the library's vast holdings; materials are continuously digitized and made freely available online as resources allow. To support these efforts, visit Give to the Newberry.

While you’re welcome to use NDC without registering, you have the option to register for a user account in order to easily bookmark and share favorite items.

To sign up, use the link at the top right of the screen, click the “Sign up” button, and fill out the registration form.

Once you’re signed in, you’ll see a new menu option at the top right: My Collections, where you can save different sets of favorites.

To create a collection, click the “Add to Collection” button under any NDC item:

This will open a pop-up window, where you’ll be prompted to add the item to a new or existing collection:

View your saved items by clicking “My Collections” at the top right screen; from there, you can invite others to view and/or edit your collection via “Manage Collaborators”, or create a URL accessible to anyone with the “Share” option.

The NDC home page offers three paths into the collections: use the search box at the upper right if you know what you're looking for; click the Browse All button if you want to see everything that's available; or select one of the tiles in the Explore section to browse specific formats or subject areas.

The Newberry seeks to make its collection as freely accessible and shareable as possible, in support of our mission to inspire research and learning in the humanities.

In order to share an item, you can create a persistent URL using the “Copy permanent link” button immediately below the viewer panel. Do not use the browser URL; it will just redirect to the Browse All results screen.

In order to share a set of results, use the browser URL; this will create a permanent link for re-use.

There are numerous ways to download content from NDC:

Selecting any of these options will open a pop-up menu with three sections:

Stacked assets:

When your item consists of multiple files (e.g. a postcard with front and back images; a book with page images; etc.), the default setting is to download all files. The “Images” section will let you know the number of files in the set. (To download only a subset of files, see below.)

Requestor status & use:

Please choose the best fit from the menu options.

Image format:

Select from medium resolution jpegs or a highest-resolution tiff file

When you don’t want to download an entire set, e.g. only a few pages from this 302-page manuscript object

Locate a page you’re interested in, then right-click on the image and select “View page details”.

This will shift the view from displaying the page within the compound object viewer, to displaying the page as an individual file. From there, use the Download button to save only that file. Repeat this process for each file of your desired subset.

Alternatively, from the compound object viewer, you may scroll to the bottom of the screen to view page thumbnails, select your preferred subset via checkboxes, and use the Download option at the lower right corner.

The Newberry makes its collections available for any lawful purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without licensing or permission fees to the library, subject to the terms and conditions outlined here. In addition to this institutional policy, specific copyright information at the item level may be found in the metadata record accompanying each asset.

Rights Status

The Rights Status field of an item’s metadata record typically contains one of three values below.

No Copyright - United States

The library has determined that the item is free of copyright under the laws of the United States.

Copyright Not Evaluated

The library has not yet undertaken an effort to determine the item’s copyright status.

In Copyright

The library has determined that the item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their work(s) available, or makes the item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the item available. The Rights Status: In Copyright field is often paired with a copyright statement field containing instructions on seeking permission for re-use, as in the example below.

Users seeking only copyright-free content can narrow their NDC results by using the Rights Status filter and selecting the No Copyright - United States option.

For more information about these statements, see the RightsStatements.org website.

Citations

While it’s not required, we would appreciate the inclusion of the credit “Newberry Library” and a link to the item in the digital collection when repurposing NDC content. Tracking such use helps us justify and prioritize future digitization projects.

This site was created and maintained by the Newberry’s Digital Initiatives & Services department. Contact us at: dis@newberry.org

For questions about the collection materials featured on this site, please contact a Newberry reference librarian