Our local historical society is preparing a policy statement
indicating its "intent to allow reasonable access to the collections
by persons with legitimate reasons to access them" as required by
charter under the NYS Board of Regents. It is not clear if "access"
means simply the ability to view the collections or also includes
some way to obtain copies of documents in the collections. In
particular, we would like to make a clear statement about the
conditions and limitations involved with patrons wishing to
copy/reproduce documents in the collection by photographic or
electronic (scanning) methods. Three of the areas to which this
statement would apply are documents that have no copyright
protection, those that have been prepared by an individual or
organization and that carry a current copyright and those that have
been prepared and are copyright protected by our Society.

If you have any suggestions and/or experiences relative to this
matter, we would appreciate having you share them with us. Please
post to my personal  address unless you think the topic is of
general interest to the List.

Thank you.      Fletcher