Publishing Content from Special Collections and Archives

Baker Library wants to know about your research! Special Collections and Archives is interested in learning more about the impact of our collections. Please complete this Use and Publication Form to tell us about your publication/use plans. Staff utilize this information to connect users to relevant resources, enhance our knowledge of collections, and review publications that draw upon our resources for potential addition to Special Collections and Archives’ holdings.

Users are not required to request permission from Baker Library to cite, quote, or use information from the majority of our collections. The main exception to this rule is the R.G. Dun & Co. credit report volumes. Please refer to our Dun Collections page for details.

There is no fee to use quotations or to cite information from the collections; however, there may be costs associated with reproducing collection content in for-profit publications or the distribution of audiovisual content.

Copyright

In many cases, Baker Library does not hold the copyright to its materials and, hence, cannot grant or deny permission to use them. The responsibility for determining the copyright status of any materials you may wish to use and obtaining permission for the intended use rests solely with you.

In all cases, users must cite Baker Library as the source of the content, following the appropriate credit line format provided below, and, if a particular item is copyrighted, must cite all copyright information and comply with all other terms or restrictions that may be applicable to that material. 

Public Domain, Fair Use, and Other Rights to Consider

  • Public Domain

    • You do not need to obtain permission to use materials in the public domain. These are works for which the copyright protections have expired, or works that were ineligible for protection from the start. Baker Library will not make public domain determinations for you. See the Harvard Library Policy on Access to Digital Reproductions of Works in the Public Domain.

    Useful resources for establishing public domain include Cornell University’s Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States chart and the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database.

  • Finding Copyright Holders

    • For help locating third-party copyright holder(s), the following resources may be useful:

  • Fair Use

    • United States copyright law contains a limited exception for fair use of copyrighted materials, permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances for teaching, scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. Baker Library cannot make a fair use determination for you. Tools such as the Fair Use Evaluator may be useful in your research. For guidelines on the fair use exception, please refer to the Harvard University Guide to Copyright and Fair Use.

  • Other Considerations

    • Other Library policies and laws may also affect publication permission.

    • Donor Agreements: The ability to publish content from some collections may be limited by the donor agreement. Baker Library reserves all rights to grant and deny permission to publish based on these limitations.
    • Privacy & Publicity Rights: You must also comply with applicable federal and state privacy and publicity laws when publishing certain materials. These laws protect the interests of the individuals who are the subject of the work. In general, a person’s right to privacy ends with his or her death, but publicity rights associated with the commercial value of that person’s name, image, or likeness may continue after death. Baker Library cannot advise you on whether the materials you wish to publish require third-party permissions.
 

Citing the Collections

The standard convention for citing collections is:

Manuscript Collections

Collection Name, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

HBS Archives Collections

Collection Name, HBS Archives, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

When citing specific documents from manuscript or HBS Archives collections, keep the questions what (letter, agreement, invoice, etc.), when (dates), and who (written by, sent to, etc.) in mind, instead of just box/carton and folder numbers. Collections may be reprocessed over time, making it more difficult for future researchers to locate content based solely on box/carton information.

  • Examples:

    • Telegram from Albert F. Heard, August 10, 1872. Heard Family Business Records, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

    Fieldwork – Notes, circa 1960. Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration Records, HBS Archives, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

 

Print Collections

Our main print collections are the:

  • Baker Old Class Collection
  • Kress Collection of Business and Economics
  • Trade Catalogs Collection
  • Corporate Reports Collection

Users should include the appropriate print collection name when citing these collections. You can search the Harvard online catalog, HOLLIS, to confirm the collection name for specific Baker Old Class, Kress, and Trade Catalog items (example titles: Baker Old Class; Kress; Trade Catalog).

Please contact reference staff at specialcollectionsref@hbs.edu if you have any questions about citing the collections. We are happy to assist you with confirming collection names and can offer suggestions for identifying specific items.