Celebrating Open Access at Georgia State University: Primary Sources Available Through Digital Collections
Authors: Christina Zamon, Rachel Senese Myers, Bryan Sinclair
GSU Library’s Digital Collections provides access to a wide variety of digital collections from its Special Collections & Archives as well as community partners. GSU has the third largest accessible collection of digital and digitized primary source materials in the state of Georgia and contributes to the Digital Library of Georgia, the largest digital collection in the state.
If you are looking for materials related to Atlanta Studies, we’ve got you covered! Check out our wide range of curated digital content in DigATL.
Some of our most popular digital collections include photographic collections. These include photographs from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution photo archives, as well as the Lane Brothers Commercial photographers. Both collections document daily life and historic events in and around 20th century Atlanta. For those interested in Georgia State University and Perimeter College history, check out our collections of student newspapers, yearbooks, and catalogs.
How can I use an item in Digital Collections?
Each item in Digital Collections has a Rights Statement. This statement clarifies how an item can be used. We use two types of statements: Creative Commons licenses and rightsstatements.org statements. Most items will have a badge that describes how you can use the item.
Creative Commons describes their licenses as “licenses [that] give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the user’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, what can I do with this work?” (About CC Licenses – Creative Commons)
We specifically use two of their licenses: CC-BY and CC-BY-NC-ND. CC-BY stands for attribution only. You can “reuse to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.”
CC-BY-NC-ND stands for attribution, noncommercial, no derivatives. You can “copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.”
Creative Commons’ badges look like this:
The other type of statements that we use are from rightsstatements.org. These statements help us communicate the copyright status in a standard way. We most often use the following statements: In Copyright and In Copyright-Educational Use. For materials with the In Copyright rights statement, you can use the content in accordance with the Fair Use rules. For anything outside Fair Use, you will need to get permission from the rights holder. For materials with In Copyright-Educational Use, you can use the materials for activities and products related to your education or for educational lectures.
The Rightsstatements.org badges look like this:
Some content within digital collections is in the public domain due to either their copyright expiring or their creator dedicating the material to the public domain. When this happens, we use the No Copyright- United States and the CC-0 statements respectively.
The Digital Projects Unit of Digital Library Services is in the process of standardizing each records’ rights statements in Digital Collections. This is part of a larger effort to make Digital Collections easier to use and search. If you have any questions about our rights statements or on how to use Digital Collections, please email digitalcollections@gsu.edu.
digATL
Sharing resources about our city and region that are free and open to all
Inspired by Georgia State’s strategic focus on Identity, Placemaking, and Belonging and in order to promote research and learning about our city and region, the University Library has created digATL: The Digital Atlanta Portal in order to provide a single online destination to showcase and share the many projects, collections, and data about the metro area produced by GSU students, faculty, and staff working with and within their local communities.
That’s digATL (pronounced didge’-A-T-L). Check it out at digatl.library.gsu.edu.
The site’s objectives:
- Contribute to research, scholarship, and creative activities focused on the city of Atlanta and our metro region.
- Support student success by providing convenient and open (free) access to primary and secondary sources for learning about our city and region across multiple disciplines.
- Foster place-based identity and belonging by linking GSU learners and researchers with resources produced and pertaining to “where they are.”
We invite you to explore the 50+ projects and resources currently available through the digATL Portal.
Also note the handy link to the most recent Atlanta research happening at GSU – doctoral dissertations, master’s theses, journal article manuscripts, etc. – located in upper right-hand corner.
Everything here is free and open to our local communities and beyond. It’s our hope that learners and researchers at all levels will find the digATL Portal both useful and engaging and we welcome your feedback and content suggestions.
You’re Invited to Celebrate Open and Affordable Education at GSU Celebrate open and affordable education at Georgia State University by submitting proposals for our Open for Student Success Symposium by November 1, 2025. The next symposium will take place on March 4, 2026. This annual symposium is free, fully online, and open to all. Its goals are to:
· Highlight and celebrate innovation in open and affordable education.
· Build a growing body of openly accessible recordings and resources that advance the landscape of open knowledge.
Those interested in presenting are encouraged to submit proposals at lib.gsu.edu/open26. Proposals are due November 1, 2025. More information is available at lib.gsu.edu/open, and inquiries may be directed to Librarian Charlene Martoni at cmartoni@gsu.edu.