In processing a request for copyright clearance for non-renewed copyrights, the PG rules require searching manually the renewal records for the 3 years surrounding the date of expiration for the author, title, publisher, etc. This can be a time consuming process if it is eventually found to have been renewed.
 
I have found the following Rutgers site a quick way of determining if a book has been renewed, thus sparing much effort:
 
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~lesk/copyrenew.html
 
A quick search on names titles etc will stop you from wasting a lot of time. I don't think it covers magazines.
 
For example a quick search on Frank Harris revealed that all of his major works have been renewed.
 
Likewise Albert Payson Terhune
 
But Margaret Armstrong "Trelawney" showed no renewal, so a manual search is now being done to clear this for PG.
 
nwolcott2@post.harvard.edu