Archives and RELs:A Janus-Faced Approach

Peter Hirtle

CUL Intellectual Property Officer

And

IRIS Technology Strategist

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

What’s in a Name

       arXiv.org e-Print archive

O p e n  A r c h i v e s  I n i t i a t i v e

Definition

1. Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information they contain or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and collective control; permanent records.

2. The division within an organization responsible for maintaining the organization's records of enduring value.

What do Archives do?

• Acquire, describe, preserve, and make accessible records of evidential and secondary value

• Order the destruction of records that don’t meet those criteria

• Ensure the authenticity, integrity, and reliability of records in their care

How can RELs help Archives?

• In accessioning and description– Archives are organized by provenance– Most RELs identify an author and office

How can RELs help Archives?

• In accessioning and description– Track additional rights: publicity, privacy, trade

secrets

• In records scheduling

RELs help with Permissions

• Required citation/attribution

• Permission to publish – Separate from copyright

USE / PERMISSION FEES

• The RAC “Permission to Use Photographs” form must be completed in full and returned to the RAC before an order will be processed….

• The Permission that is granted by the Rockefeller Archive Center is for one-time use. Use of RAC images in any additional or subsequent editions of a publication will require the applicant to resubmit the Permission to Use Photographs form and pay all appropriate fees. For subsequent commercial use, there will be a $50 per image charge.

The Danger of Enforceable RELs

• Restricted material must be accessible in some cases– 3rd party material used in policy decisions

Threat to long-term access

• Archives keep things for a long time…

•How do you preserve an electronic file that can’t be copied or opened?

•How do you seek permission 100 years from now?