ODU's Special Collections and University Archives provides copies of materials to facilitate private study, scholarship, or research. We welcome you to use materials in our collections that are in the public domain and to make fair use of copyrighted materials as defined by copyright law.
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17 United States Code) governs the making of reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a researcher uses a reproduction for purposes in excess of “fair use,” that researcher may be liable for copyright infringement.
Requests to copy Special Collections & Archives material constitute an agreement that you will not reproduce, transfer, distribute, broadcast, publicly display, offer for sale, or otherwise use or publish any material subject to copyright, or a portion thereof, in excess of fair use, as defined by copyright law, without the express permission of the copyright holder (PDF).
Please note that Old Dominion University Libraries Special Collections and University Archives does not hold the copyright to all of the items in its collections. If the work is subject to copyright, the copyright remains with the producer or publisher of the work or others to whom the copyright may have been assigned. The researcher is responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright holder before publishing any of this material.
We reserve the right to limit the number of copies made; to restrict the use of rare and valuable items; and to deny a request because of copyright regulations, privacy rights, donor-imposed regulations, or other rights related issues.
Please fill out and sign our Permission to Publish form completely and submit it to libspecialcollections@odu.edu.
The use of personal phones and other cameras is permitted. There is no charge for use of cameras or scanners. Special Collections & Archives staff may forbid the use of cameras or scanners if you mishandle materials, or if your equipment poses any risk to our materials or causes disruption in our reading room.
For researchers who are not able to visit in person, or researchers requiring high-resolution scans, Special Collections staff will provide a limited number of scans of materials. There is no charge for scan requests. Special Collections & Archives staff may decline scan requests that are too large or when scanning equipment poses any risk to our materials. Email libspecialcollections@odu.edu for scan requests.