Q&A - MBC
Małopolska Digital Library Q&A
The questions we have asked ourselves and answered ourselves.
What do we acquire and from whom?
We acquire, scan, archive and make available works whose subject matter fits into the main thematic segments of MBC, i.e.: cultural heritage, science and didactics, Małopolska regionalia, Małopolska magazines, special collections and collections of archives and cultural institutions of our region.
Our stakeholders are mainly institutions, very rarely natural persons.
Everything we collect has a regulated copyright law.
What do we make available?
At MBC you will find both digitised works (magazines and newspapers, books, manuscripts, leaflets, iconographic collections, etc.) that belong to the public domain and those that are protected by copyright.
What is public domain?
The public domain includes works (1) which are not subject to the restrictions of Polish copyright law or (2) those for which the property copyrights have expired (cf. the Copyright and related Rights Act of 4 February 1994 – i.e. Journal of Laws of 2022, item 2509).
Examples of the former are normative acts or their official designs, official documents, signs and symbols, published patent or protective descriptions, simple press releases, etc.
An example of the latter are works for which 70 years have passed since:
(1) the death of their creator, co-creator or their heirs,
(2) the first distribution when an anonymous work is involved.
Works that go into the public domain are common property, accessible to everyone, to be used freely and for any purpose, but with respect for personal copyright (i.e., when using such a work, you must provide the name of the author, if known). Remember – the fact that a work goes into the public domain does not in this way make it a work belonging to anyone else.
What works are covered by property copyright?
These are works that do not meet the criteria of works in the public domain and are subject to copyright protection.
In MBC you will also find works covered by copyright. They are published by us if the owner of the copyright grants us an unlimited license to reproduce his work digitally (digitisation), publish it and distribute it online.
What are the legal restrictions on the use of what we provide?
Each MBC user has the right to freely access the works we store if they do not have protection resulting from the decision of the copyright owner of the property rights, e.g. limiting the use to a specific IP address.
Any MBC user may lawfully make a copy of a work published by us, provided that they do so:
(1) for personal use;
(2) for educational and research purposes.
However, the source of the work copied should always be provided, using a link, i.e. the URL, leading to our resource.
It may happen that the author or publisher has agreed to a different scope of use of a work than those described above; then you will find information about it in the bibliographic description of the work in the COPYRIGHT field.
How can you help us?
We digitise without hesitation. We save the literary cultural heritage of Krakow and Małopolska. We have nearly 150,000 publications. We constantly check and improve the quality of what we share, but it may happen that you will find a poor quality scan, imperfectly recognised content in the document or a bibliographic description that is inadequate to the work presented to you. Contact us and tell us your observations. Thank you in advance for them!
