Reuse, citation & access
This archive is built to be cited, harvested, and re-presented in classrooms, exhibits, and downstream platforms. The pages below tell you exactly what you can do with what you find here.
Rights statements you will see
Every record carries a rights URI from the international RightsStatements.org vocabulary. The same statements are used by Europeana, DPLA, and most major aggregators — what you see here is portable across the field.
Full vocabulary at rightsstatements.org.
- In Copyright
- Copyright is held by an identified party. Personal study and citation under fair use are permitted; reproduction, distribution, or commercial reuse requires permission from the rights holder.
- No Copyright — US
- In the public domain in the United States. You may reproduce, adapt, and re-publish freely. Other jurisdictions may differ — please check before redistribution.
- Educational Use Permitted
- Permitted for non-commercial educational and research use with credit. Commercial reuse requires written permission from the archive.
- Rights Undetermined
- We have not been able to clear rights with confidence. Treat as in copyright until we can confirm otherwise. Tell us what you find — we update statements when evidence comes in.
How to cite the archive
Every record page provides a one-click citation in Chicago, APA, and MLA. Use it. Citing primary sources properly is how an archive earns its place in the scholarly record and how it survives platform changes that may rename its URLs.
We mint stable, persistent URLs for every published record. The URL on the share button is the URL you should put in your bibliography — it will not break when we redesign the site.
Example — Chicago
Krakow Ghetto Family Portrait, ca. 1942. Project Witness Digital Archive, record id 7f4a–2c91. Accessed 7 May 2026. https://archive.projectwitness.org/records/7f4a-2c91.
Open the citation menu on any record page to copy the formatted reference.
Accessibility commitments
This site targets WCAG 2.2 AA conformance. Real conformance is a continuous practice, not a one-time audit — these are the commitments we hold ourselves to and the things we are still working on.
- Every interactive control reachable by keyboard, with visible focus and skip-to-content links on every page.
- Image descriptions in Hebrew and English, generated from cataloguing and reviewed by archivists. We are working through the backlog from our legacy import.
- High-contrast typography, RTL-aware layouts, and language-specific fonts for Hebrew, Yiddish, and English. No reliance on color alone to convey state.
- IIIF imagery delivered with deep zoom, rotation, and full keyboard navigation — designed for low-vision researchers as much as for high-resolution print.
If you encounter a barrier — even a small one — please write to us at archive@projectwitness.org.
APIs & harvesting endpoints
Our metadata is open and harvestable. Aggregators, researchers, and downstream platforms are welcome to consume the archive without prior arrangement; rate limits are generous and we will lift them on request.
- OAI-PMH Standards-compliant OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint with all six verbs. Used by DPLA, Europeana, and other aggregators to harvest records and respect deletions. /api/public/oai
- REST Read-only JSON API for browsing records, collections, entities, and exhibits. Documented endpoints with stable shapes. /api/public/*
- Sitemap Standard XML sitemap with one entry per published record, refreshed on every publish. /sitemap.xml
- IIIF Every image is delivered as IIIF Image API 3.0 and Presentation API 3.0. Open the manifest in any IIIF viewer — Mirador, Universal Viewer — and the imagery comes with you.
If you operate an aggregator and want a custom set selector, a higher rate limit, or a heads-up when we add or retire records, please write to us.