Policies, Statements, and Explanations

• Privacy Policy
• Accessibility Statement
• Mandatory Mission Statement
• Copyright Issues and the Public Domain
• Why are there Typos in Some Works?

Privacy Policy

Information Collection and Use

Notification of New Works

The email address submitted by the user to sign up for notification of new works is used only to send email when a new work is published on this site, the frequency of which varies from biennially to seasonally to monthly, depending on how productive we are. The email addresses are used for that purpose only, and not disclosed.

Cookies

In an internet or computer context, a cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. Cookies are not used on this site. (The small flat sweet cake variety of cookies, however, are often eaten while working on this site.)

Log Files

Nearly all web site servers use log files to report activity. Logs usually include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP) in the form of a DNS (Domain Name System) number, referring/exit pages, platform type, and date/time stamp. They can be used to check for things like what caused someone to receive a 404 error (page not found), find which pages are most visited, and see which search keywords were used to find the site. The information (such as IP addresses) is not linked to personally identifiable information.

External Links

The links to other sites will lead to sites with their own privacy policies. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected (described above) by this web site.

Notification of Changes

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, and to the What's New page so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

Accessibility Statement

We strive to keep this site in compliance with the W3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines. This includes:

• Supplying description ALT tags for all images, and null ALT attributes for purely decorative elements. ALT tags provide information about images to viewers who are visually challenged or are using text-based browsers.
• Using valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS allow you to separate content from layout. If your browser does not support CSS, this site is still readable and navigable (just not as pretty).
• Using structured semantic markup so page titles are marked by H1 tags, subtitles by H2 tags, and sub-subtitles by H3 tags. This allows users of JAWS (a screen reader for Windows) to skip to the next subtitle.
• Removing unnecessary javascript. Formerly, we used javascript rollovers for the navigation arrows; now, we rely on the CSS rollover feature.
• Including a link to skip the navigation menu and jump to the main content.
• Not duplicating link text; two links with the same link text always point to the same address.
• Including link descriptions, especially if a link will take you off this site.
• Using tables for data, not for layout.

If you find something we've overlooked (a missing alt tag, or duplicate link text, for example), please let us know.

Mandatory Mission Statement

VintageSewing.info is the publishing site of the Vintage Sewing Reference Library, Inc. a nonprofit public benefit corporation which publishes public domain vintage sewing, fashion, and lifestyle books and images, rescuing primary source reference material from obscurity to freely share with anyone who searches for it. We especially want to provide this information to recreationists and costumers so they can make design and construction choices from knowledge, not ignorance.

Copyright Issues and Public Domain

Ah, what a complicated and constantly changing issue. Copyright is a right established by Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution to "promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." This "limited time" has been continually extended by congress, and is currently running at 95 years. Public domain refers to those works whose copyright has expired.

This site is based in the United States, so we comply with the U.S. Copyright law. A good overview of copyright duration can be found in the U.S. Government Copyright Office's Circular 15a. The short story is that works published with notice of copyright or registered in unpublished form prior to January 1, 1964 had to be renewed during the 28th year of their first term of copyright to maintain protection for a full 95-year term.

The works published on this site are, to the best of our knowledge, in the public domain. This means we have checked the Catalog of Copyright Entries (usually available at major universities; some years are available online) for renewal notice and did not find one. If you hold the renewal certificate for any of these works and wish either to have them removed from the site, or simply to have your copyright acknowledged, please contact us; upon receiving a copy of the renewal certificate, we will comply.

• To Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Can I make it any more clear? You do NOT have permission to repackage the information on this site to sell it, or to charge admission or in any way impede free access to it. This information is to be FREELY shared. I encourage you to share it; you need only include a link or text reference back to this site so people can find their way here and see what other information we have. If you choose to copy entire passages or works to your own site, you must include a clearly visible attribution on each page (for example, the original web version of this work can be found at VintageSewing.info). You can use the images for noncommercial purposes; if used on web sites, include an attribution and link to us (for example, image courtesy of VintageSewing.info). You may use the images or information for your presentations and include them in your local sewing guild's newsletters, again, with an attribution. If you want to use any of the images on items that will be sold, you need explicit permission (contact me).

If this seems restrictive to you, you are free to acquire an original print version of the work for yourself, then scan it, OCR it, format and code it, clean up the images, and do whatever you would like with it. If you use anything published by Vintage Sewing Reference Library, Inc., it must be under the terms stated herein.

Why are there Typos in Some Works?

The works published are, for the most part, reproduced without revisions to grammar or spelling. When orthography has been regularized, typographical errors corrected, or grammar changed, it has been noted in that work's "typo" document (listed with the work's summary on the appropriate "decade" page). If you are comparing an original copy of the work to that published on this site and find typographical errors that have not been annotated, please bring them to our attention and we will verify it is from the original work and annotate it.