digitization of libraries' historic materials

[Elena OMalley]

A few snips:

...
> Now we're looking at the local high school yearbooks as candidates for digitization.

...
> Our concerns are two-fold: first, what will the Copyright Police think of our scheme; 
> and second, what about privacy issues?  Personally, I wouldn't be thrilled to have my 
> senior photograph next to my name up on a website. However, there are those that say 
> permission was given when the student agreed to have their picture included in the 
> yearbook, when they could have chosen to opt out.

Karen Coyle did a lovely job on the legal issues, so I will only add that the specific bit 
of copyright law that seems to answer the question about posting them to a non-restricted
website is http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/108.html sections b2 and c2.

The "opt out" argument may or may not hold up in the moral sense, depending on the
policies of the high school. At the time the photographs were taken, those folks were 
13 to 19 years old. The "choices" one gets to make at that age can be very limited for all 
sorts of reasons.   

The project might be able to contact high school reunion committees or class officers to 
obtain permissions from individuals beyond the copyright clearance issue with the school.
I suspect many people would be pleased to be included, and this might be a good way to
market to a possible target audience.

Elena O'Malley
__
Elena O'Malley, Head of Library Computer and Internet Services
Emerson College Library, Boston, MA 02116