In reading these postings and Joel's comments, I believe there are two issues involved here. One is access and one is right to publish/copy. If an item is still under copyright or if an institution is simply unsure of its status, then the institution bears liability for publishing or allowing copies to be made by others. That is usually the case for historical organizations. They feel it better to err on the side of either not permitting copying or demanding that the use secure permission from copyright owners. I suspect this is an outgrowth of the famous Kinko's photocopying-from-copyrighted-works. Our campus scanning department instituted a form that the requestor must sign holding the University not liable for copyright infringement. I've even had to provide memoranda that 100+ year old engravings or maps could be scanned and were not subject to copyright. On the other hand, I have had people insist that I provide them with photocopies or scans of photographs simply because they are in public domain. And here we begin to fall into the issue of what is our purpose as an archives or archivists. I am permitted to turn down requests for laborious amounts of photocopying due to a small staff. Often these demands are simply because the person does not want to sit down and do research here! Being in a library organization has brought a great deal of self-evaluation, especially as librarians consider how they should provide services -- and they look at archives the same way. We've decided it is not the function of a library to do entire-book-photocopying simply because a user wants it (especially the many long-distance users who could be several hundred miles away). Students have complained to the administration that "we" wouldn't look up the populations to fifteen world countries over the telephone that they need for a class. Administrators then say 'what is the library for.' Sorry, that's another issue. Dean Dean DeBolt University Librarian, Special Collections John C. Pace Library, University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514-5750 850-474-2213 [log in to unmask] A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org. For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>