Guide to Permissions and Copyright for Special Collections

Publishing and Reusing Special Collections Materials
The Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center does not charge any permission or usage fees for researchers seeking to publish or reproduce archival or special collections holdings. This applies for researchers seeking to use materials in either non-commercial or commercial context. 

However, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center's consent as the owner of physical or digital materials in our collections does not provide address requests to reproduce collection contents currently under copyright and/or any additional legal issues that may arise from publication and reproduction of our holdings. 

Reproducing Materials Under Copyright and Third-Party Intellectual Property
While the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center owns the materials in our collections, we generally do not own the intellectual property or copyright to those materials. Materials in our collection may be available under public domain; however, the majority of the photographs, films, and materials in our collections may be protected by trademark, privacy or publicity rights controlled by third-party creators. 

Individual researchers are responsible for determining whether permissions are required publish or reproduce any materials protected or controlled by the rights of a third-party as well as for obtaining the required permissions necessary to reuse archival materials. If the Institute for Advanced Study owns the copyright or intellectual property for the materials in question, researchers do not need to obtain permission to reproduce those materials. In such cases, the archival finding aid will contain a note to inform researchers of the conditions governing use.  Researchers with questions concerning the Institute for Advanced Study's archival records should contact to the Institute's Archivist for additional information. 

For general help determining issues regarding fair use, the public domain, and copyright, the Institute for Advanced Study recommends that researchers consult the U.S. Copyright Office Database or the Stanford University's Copyright & Fair Use Guide.

Citing Archival Materials
The Archives Center does ask that researchers making use of our holdings credit the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center. We generally recommend that researchers review the relevant style guides provided by individual publishers or the style guide of their choosing when creating citations. However, we also remind researchers that credits and citations for primary-source and archival materials often require additional specificity. 

We recommend that researchers consult with individual finding aids to find the most accurate citations for collections. Generally, we ask researchers to cite materials with any relevant item information information, the full collection name, and the repository. An example is: "Letter from John N. Bahcall to Lyman Spitzer," John N. Bahcall papers, Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.).

Researchers with additional questions concerning copyright, permissions, or citations should contact the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center at archives@ias.edu.