Permissions & Citation

Permissions

The Wilson Special Collections Library will grant permission for the exhibition, broadcast, or publication of unrestricted collection materials in accordance with the following conditions:

  • Any permission granted by Wilson Library will fully comply with the limitations and strictures imposed by copyright and the donor of the materials.
  • This permission is valid only insofar as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as owner or custodian of the material, has any rights in the matter. This permission does not remove the responsibility of the author, editor, publisher, or broadcaster to guard against infringement of any rights, including copyright that may be held by others.
  • We will not grant an exclusive right to use a particular item. In every instance, the University fully retains its own right to publish material and reserves its right to authorize others to do so.
  • Permission for public use is contingent on materials being properly cited and identified. See the “Citation” section below for more details.
  • To obtain permission, you must submit a written request to wilsonlibrary@unc.edu with the following information: the specific materials that you wish to use; a brief description of the manner in which these materials will be reproduced; exhibited, broadcast, or published; and your name and contact information.
  • Your request will be reviewed and answered in the order that it was received.
  • We will not sign outside contracts or publisher-generated permission forms. Permission to publish will be granted and recorded only in a letter composed and signed by us.
  • We reserve the right to refuse to grant permission to publish.

For details on requesting an exhibition loan, visit our Exhibition Loan Policy page.

Citation

Please use the following basic format for all citations of materials held in Wilson Library:

[Identification of item]. [Name of collection]. The Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Please see our Citation Examples page for examples of preferred citations of specific materials held in Wilson Library. For more information on citing, see UNC Libraries’ Citing & Writing page. Please do not hesitate to email us with specific questions about citations at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Copyright & Confidential Information

U.S. Copyright law governs the making and use of copies and other reproductions of copyrighted materials, both published and unpublished. Please note that most unpublished manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs and moving images created in the past 120 years are protected under copyright law. Transmission, reproduction, publication, or presentation (public display, performance, Internet presentation) of protected items require the permission of the copyright owners. For more information on copyright, see the Scholarly Communications Office resource page. Copyright status and information on copyright holders can be difficult to determine; the responsibility for obtaining permissions rests with the researcher.

Manuscript collections and archival records that include twentieth- and twenty-first-century materials may contain sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. Section 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. Section 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual’s private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.