I. Mission

The Presbyterian Historical Society leverages its collections and archival work to galvanize the transformative power of history in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and wider community. The Society’s digital collections, Pearl, supports this work by collecting, managing, preserving, and increasing access to its digitized and born-digital collections. Digital Collections provide congregations, researchers, and the general public with educational and inspirational resources that showcase Presbyterian and Reformed history and its relevance to American history and contemporary life. 

II. Scope

The scope of the Digital Collections is guided by the society's Collection Development Policy. In order to provide long-term preservation and access, the scope of the Digital Collections is dependent on technological resources and funding and must necessarily be more narrow and restrictive than that of the physical collections. The Digital Collections are particularly focused on themes related to overseas and national mission work, ecumenical and interfaith activities, education, and social and political issues and activism. Digital Collections include digitized and born-digital records; manuscripts; images; publications, including rare books; sound recordings; and moving images. At this time, access is not provided to digitized congregation or mid council records and most born digital records; however, efforts are being made to preserve this content on separate servers outside of the Islandora digital asset management system [see Digital Preservation Policy for more information]. The collection, management, and preservation of PC(USA) national agency, synod, and presbytery websites using Archive-It is not addressed in this policy.

Inclusion in Digital Collections must be for one or more of the following reasons in addition to meeting the requirements of the selection criteria below.

Preservation

• To reduce handling of fragile or frequently requested collection items.
• To enable bit-level preservation of audio-visual and born-digital items stored on unstable media.

Access

• To provide wider access to popular and/or unique collection items of high research value, enabling remote users to access collections simultaneously.
• To improve access to minimally processed collections with enhanced metadata and improved discoverability.
• To empower users to discover resources without mediation by archival staff.

Outreach

• To strategically support the society's outreach activities, grant-funded or donor-funded projects, or collaborative projects with like-minded institutions.​

III. Selection Criteria

A minimum of three criteria should be met in order to be considered a candidate for addition to the Digital Collections. Selection will be made by the Digitization Priorities Team.

IV. Excluded Items

The following items are currently excluded from the Digital Collections unless priorities change or funding and technological resources can be expanded.

• Scan-on-demand requests that do not comply with collection purpose and selection criteria above.
• Copyrighted materials or personally sensitive materials that are deemed "high-risk," unless permission is secured or they can be embargoed.
• "Low-quality" digital assets, i.e. file is overly compressed, illegible, cropped unprofessionally, photomechanical prints that produce moiré pattern.

​V. Deaccessioning

Individual digital objects or collections may be withdrawn with the approval of the Digitization Priorities Team. Periodic reappraisal of collections is a legitimate and necessary part of collection development in archives and manuscript repositories, and allows the identification of materials that would not be accepted today or are no longer appropriate to the institution’s mission. 

Using archival best practices, the society may deaccession a digital object if:

• It is no longer relevant and useful to the mission of the society.
• It no longer retains its physical integrity, identity, or authenticity (i.e. file corruption).
• It is unnecessarily duplicated in the Digital Collections (i.e. versions of the same file).
• It is found to violate copyright, publicity rights, privacy laws, or donor restrictions (may be embargoed rather than deaccessioned).

VI. Copyright Policy

As part of its mission to leverage its collections and archival work to galvanize the transformative power of history in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and wider community, the Presbyterian Historical Society provides access to items from its collection via its website, digital repository (Pearl), social media, and reproduction services. With a few exceptions, the society does not own copyright to its collection materials and provides access under the Fair Use (17 U.S. Code § 107) exception of U.S. Copyright law (U.S. Code, Title 17) for purposes of "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research." Reproduction and publication of materials protected by copyright for purposes beyond that allowed by fair use require the written permission of the copyright holder. Responsibility for assessing copyright status and for securing any necessary permission rests exclusively with the user.

U.S. Copyright law protects creators’ rights to control the use of their works for a limited period of time. Creators have exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, perform, and display their works, and to create derivative works. In addition to copyright protections, some materials may be subject to restrictions because of privacy and publicity rights, trademark, purchase agreement, or donor stipulation. Foreign-made works may be subject to foreign copyright laws.

VII. Copyright Risk Assessment

A copyright risk assessment guides decisions on whether to make copyrighted, potentially copyrighted, or other sensitive materials publically accessible within the Digital Collections. Copyright risk is defined as the likelihood that publishing protected images without permission would lead to claims of infringement or would expose the society to liability or damage its reputation. Items that are deemed "low risk" can be made accessible without seeking permission from copyright or other rights holders. Items that are deemed "high risk" require seeking permission before being made accessible.

The Fair Use Exemption (17 U.S. Code § 107) of Copyright Law is considered the strongest defense for libraries and archives building digital collections. When choosing copyrighted or other rights protected content for digitization and online publication, a fair use assessment should be made to guide decisions about access to and presentation of the items. It is also important to consider other forms of intellectual property rights, such as trademark; patents; trade secrets; industrial design rights; right of publicity; right of privacy; and defamation (Hirtle, Hudson, Kenyon, 173-174).

Fair Use Checklist

This checklist was designed by Columbia University Libraries and is provided as a tool to assist in making a fair use analysis. The four factors listed in the Copyright Statute are only guidelines for making a determination as to whether a use is fair. Each factor should be given careful consideration in analyzing any specific use. There is no magic formula; an arithmetic approach to the application of the four factors should not be used. Depending on the specific facts of a case, it is possible that even if three of the factors would tend to favor a fair use finding, the fourth factor may be the most important one in that particular case, leading to a conclusion that the use may not be considered fair.

Kenneth D. Crews and Dwayne K. Buttler, Fair Use Checklist (New York: Columbia University Libraries, 2008), https://copyright.columbia.edu/basics/fair-use/fair-use-checklist.html

Risk Assessment Criteria

Peter B. Hirtle, Emily Hudson, and Andrew T. Kenyon, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009), http://hdl.handle.net/1813/14142

VIII. Requesting Permission

The society does not charge licensing or permission fees for publication of items in its collections. In many cases, the society only owns the physical objects in its collection, and copyright has been retained by the creator(s) of the material. Permission must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Whenever possible, the society will provide factual information about potential copyright holders. However, ultimate responsibility for assessing copyright status and for securing any necessary permission rests exclusively with the user. Please see Evaluating Copyright for more information.

The society can grant copyright permission on behalf of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the National Council of Churches when these organizations are the sole copyright holder. The society does not grant or deny permission to use works in its collections that are in the public domain.

For questions about copyright status and copyright permission, contact: refdesk@history.pcusa.org or call (215) 627-1852.

IX. Takedown Policy

The Presbyterian Historical Society makes every effort to conform with copyright, privacy, confidentiality, and donor restrictions before content is disseminated. If you claim copyright and believe that the society's use of materials constitutes an infringement or a violation of privacy, you may submit a takedown request.

A takedown request may be initiated by:

1. The individual or organization who is the copyright holder.
2. The individual or organization who is the subject of the record containing personal or confidential information.
3. A legally authorized agent representing the copyright holder or record subject.

To submit a takedown request, please fill out the Takedown Request Form. You can also download a PDF version and email the form to refdesk@history.pcusa.org (link sends e-mail) or mail it to:

Presbyterian Historical Society

Rights and Reproductions

425 Lombard Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

Upon receiving a request, the society will begin an investigation into the claim. A resolution will be communicated in writing. If an infringement or privacy violation is determined to have occurred, the item(s) in question will be taken down until the applicable intellectual property rights have expired.

X. Supported File Formats

In general, all proprietary file formats should be converted to open formats for preservation.

Text Formats

Image Formats

Audio Formats

Video Formats

XI. Scanning Specifications

The following image capture guidelines and file formats are modeled on FADGI's Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials and apply to the digitization of all objects from the PHS collections, including those items scanned for Digital Image Requests, preservation, exhibits, and all PHS communications.

When scanning historical objects, master files should maintain the essential features and information of the original, documenting the image at the time of scanning (not what it may have looked like originally).

Select scanning resolution for master TIFFs based on format and size: