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The LibraryODERSA publishing house
An ODERSA resource · Knowledge programmeA book only goes online once it is whole and read by someone else.

Credits

This page is built from the licence catalogue of the repository. It therefore cannot leave anything out.

The typefaces

  • Literataheadings and foliosweights 400, 700

    Designed by TypeTogether : Veronika Burian et José Scaglione (latin), Irene Vlachou (grec), Vera Evstafieva et Elena Novoselova (cyrillique).

    Licence: SIL Open Font License 1.1 · Copyright 2017 The Literata Project Authors.

    Official page: fonts.google.com/specimen/Literata/license · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

    Designed for reading books: it was commissioned as the brand typeface of a digital bookstore. It is the display face of this house, and it is used nowhere else at ODERSA.

  • Noto Sansrunning textweights 400, 700

    Designed by The Noto Project Authors, publiée par Google.

    Licence: SIL Open Font License 1.1 · Copyright 2022 The Noto Project Authors.

    Official page: fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans/license · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

    The family built to cover every writing system in the world, which is exactly what a house publishing in several alphabets needs. Only the Latin subset is downloaded: Arabic, Devanagari, Bengali and Chinese are served by your own device, and that is what keeps this site light.

The photographs

Every image is openly licensed, its licence was checked at its source page, and the image itself was looked at before being adopted. The credit link under each photograph on this site leads to its entry below.

  • The nave of a fifteenth-century library: two rows of wooden lecterns hold volumes chained to their desks, beneath vaults carried on stone columns.

    Nef de la bibliothèque Malatestiana et ses pupitres à livres enchaînés

    Photograph by Terragio67 · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · the version cropped and treated by this site is published under that same licence

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • A dozen early volumes lined up on a shelf: calf bindings with raised bands, then limp vellum bindings with their titles written by hand.

    Rayon de reliures en vélin et en veau de la Librije de Zutphen

    Photograph by Mx Lucy · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · the version cropped and treated by this site is published under that same licence

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • An old reading room photographed with nobody in it: shelves of vellum-bound volumes line the walls, and a large book lies open on a lectern in the foreground.

    Salle de lecture de la Bibliotheca Thysiana, murs de reliures en vélin

    Photograph by G.Th. Delemarre / Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · the version cropped and treated by this site is published under that same licence

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • A compositor's type case seen head-on: a wooden tray divided into dozens of compartments, each packed with rows of lead type.

    Casse de typographe, Grandjean, musée Champollion

    Photograph by VIGNERON · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY 3.0

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • The marbled edge of a nineteenth-century book seen from above: irregular veins run across the paper, with the embossed cloth board visible below.

    Tranche marbrée d'une reliure de 1856

    Photograph by Tom Jac · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · the version cropped and treated by this site is published under that same licence

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • A row of heavy leather-bound volumes seen at an angle: the text blocks have warped, the leather is crazed, and the paper labels are worn.

    Tranches et dos de volumes anciens, bibliothèque de Merton College

    Photograph by Tom Murphy VII · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · the version cropped and treated by this site is published under that same licence

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • A wooden bookbinder's press standing on a bench: two upright posts, a large turned wooden screw at the centre, and a bar running through it.

    Presse à vis en bois d'un atelier de reliure

    Photograph by Thomas Quine · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY 2.0

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • Volumes lying on a sloped lectern, seen very close up: the raised bands on their leather spines stand out clearly, and an iron chain is still attached to one of them.

    Volumes à dos à nerfs retenus par leurs chaînes sur un pupitre

    Photograph by Mx Lucy · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · the version cropped and treated by this site is published under that same licence

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • The leather board of an early binding decorated by blind tooling: panels of scrollwork pressed into the skin, with no ink and no gilding.

    Reliure estampée à froid

    Photograph by Alice De Coster · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC0 1.0

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • A binder's hand draws the sewing thread through the spine of a gathered section held in a wooden sewing frame, the linen tapes stretched above the book block.

    Main d’artisan cousant le bloc-livre d’un psautier sur un cousoir de bois

    Photograph by Charlotte Kramer · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC BY 4.0

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

  • A hand holds an open manual, the thumb resting on the edge of the leaves, printed text running across both pages in soft light.

    Main tenant un manuel ouvert, le pouce pose sur la tranche des feuillets

    Photograph by João Silas · Wikimedia Commons.

    Licence: CC0 1.0

    Source page: see the image page · licence checked on August 6, 2026.

The rule an image has to meet to get in

Six conditions, and all six are needed. A photograph missing one does not get in, whatever its quality.

  • A source page carrying its author, its licence and a link to the text of that licence.
  • A licence that is the public domain, a CC0 dedication, CC BY or CC BY-SA. A non-commercial or no-derivatives clause is refused.
  • No recognisable face, no legible commercial brand, no staged scene presented as real.
  • The image opened and looked at, not only its record: a repository label is not proof.
  • Preparation offline, inside the repository: cropping at the focal point, the house treatment, two widths at least, one modern format and its fallback.
  • A text alternative written in every language built, failing which the release is refused.

One lesson from the image search deserves to be written here: a photograph with an impeccable licence, dedicated to the public domain by a university collection, was set aside after visual examination because it carried two legible commercial labels that its metadata did not mention. Reading a record is not the same as opening the image.

What completes this page