American Art Review Study Project: Contractor Information / What the contractor does

American Art Review Study Project

Contractor Relationship Information

Independent contractor to:

1. enter into an agreement with TFAO covering a number of agreed upon texts.

The initial study project covers 36 American Art Review issues published between 1992 and 1998. There are about 14 articles or essays in an issue giving a potential number of 500 texts for study. About 30% are rejected for having unfavorable recovery matrix composite scores. This leaves 350 net texts for further action.

As of November 2007 about 30% of the 350 net texts had been reprinted plus dozens of catalogue essays from which articles were derived. In some cases, American Art Review articles were not published if catalogue essays were published in substitution for them.

TFAO will present to the contractor a list of "American Art Review articles for consideration taken from the Author Study and Index in alphabetical order by author name, accompanied by recovery matrix composite scores. In some cases TFAO may present a list of related catalogue essays in substitution for articles.

Scores of 1, 2, 4 and 5 indicate information desirable for the TFAO digital library or heightened probability of reprinting. Texts with these favorable scores will be pursued for reprinting. Scores of 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9 indicate substantial information already available in the TFAO digital library or through external links, or low probability of reprinting. Texts with these unfavorable scores will not be pursued.

Contracts will be let for working on an agreed upon number of texts. Note: TFAO's recent experience is that approximately 1/2 of texts worked on with favorable recovery matrix composite scores result in permissions granted. The most likely reason for permissions not obtained is inability to find the owner of the text. Less likely reasons are apathy or reluctance on the part of the owner in having the text reprinted or inability of the author to remember the ownership of the text or confusion as to ownership.

TFAO will not compensate contractor in any amount for work involved with texts that do not yield approval emails directly to TFAO from the copyright owners plus complete presentation packages. The risk that work done on a text will not lead to a complete presentation package and subsequent payment by TFAO rests solely with the contractor.

Issues of American Art Review published between 1992 and 1998 are usually available in university libraries if the university has an art history department. Issues may also be available at public libraries, art museum libraries and at art dealers. Often the issues are in the library's reference department and cannot be checked out, requiring photocopies to be made. The usual library call number for the publication is: N6505 .A619 and the ISSN number is 0092-1327. A public library's inter-library loan department may be able to arrange for photocopies of pages from needed American Art Review issues from another library that carries American Art Review, subject to the contractor's payment of a copying fee. TFAO suggests that contractors ask that photocopies of needed pages be made with the pages pressed flat on the copier so that the lines of text are not distorted near the spine of the magazine or a bound volume holding multiple issues. Google searches and searches in library websites will locate libraries carrying the magazine.

2. become familiar with TFAO's About TFAO and Author Study and Index, plus Resource Library's Services to institutions, Scholarly text from private sources, and Content presentation guidelines, It's good to know -- if asked about viewership -- that TFAO's website is viewed by millions of people each year and is the most viewed website in the world devoted to American art. Sometimes it pleases an author or museum to know that many new people will be exposed to their texts and that TFAO will enable them to be more widely known. There are statistics at <http://tfaoi.org/aa/5aa/5aa49a.htm>.

3. determine the copyright ownership of each assigned American Art Review text.

TFAO has found it useful to read the biography of the author of each text. Contact with authors many times easily solves the question of copyright ownership of a text and the existence and ownership of a related catalogue essay. The biography of the author for each text is found in the back of each American Art Review issue. If the text is related to an exhibition, there will be placed next to the text summary information on the exhibition with the name of an exhibiting museum, its address and phone number. The exhibiting museum may not be the organizing museum. Organizing museums may hold copyrights, but exhibiting venues other than organizers do not own them.

For authors who are difficult to reach based on the biography in the back of the American Art Review issue, searches in Google advanced search and the Resource Library home page may help identify the present whereabouts of the author. Also, if TFAO's Author Study and Index indicates that the author has written an article in American Art Review or another magazine or journal published after 1998, the more recent issues may provide the present whereabouts of the author.

When speaking with an author, or co-authors, the contractor should ask of each who is the copyright holder or holders and confirm the ownership which each party. If one of the authors can't be reached and the author who is contacted claims full copyright ownership, the contractor may relay on the statement. If an author says that a museum owns or co-owns the article, the contractor confirms the museum's ownership or co-ownership with the museum. If the author can't be reached, and the article is related to a museum exhibit, a curator or director at a museum in some instances may recall that the museum owns the article. Staff at small and medium-sided museums are usually able and willing to research ownership.

In instances where an American Art Review article is a condensation of a catalogue essay, the author often states ownership of the article and the museum or other publisher of the catalogue essay as owner of the underlying essay. If ownership, or co-ownership, is determined to be with a for-profit publisher, permission of the publisher is not sought.

At the beginning or end of the American Art Review text there may be a note indicating that it is a condensation or excerpt from a catalogue essay. Often there is no clear indication of whether the American Art Review text is an original article or essay, a condensation, or a reprint of an essay. In instances where an American Art Review article is found by the contractor to be a condensation or excerpt of a catalogue essay, the contractor and TFAO may agree that the greatest value to the public would be for the contractor to seek the value derived from reprinting of the original essay. An underlying essay may offer significantly greater knowledge than is contained in the related American Art Review text. In those cases pursuit of approvals to reprint the article may be agreed between the contractor and the TFAO director to be a second choice in favor of pursuing the underlying essay. The pursuit of approvals for reprinting of related catalogue essays as first choice and in substitution for reprinting of American Art Review articles is described at Related catalogue essays.

Authors have repeatedly stated that articles written by them and published by American Art Review during the 1992-1998 study period are owned by the authors since they received no compensation from American Art Review. In some instances authors cannot remember who holds the copyright to an article. In infrequent instances authors will say that they were compensated by American Art Review.

When speaking with an author, the contractor should verify that the author was not compensated by American Art Review and that the author believes that the magazine is not owner of the article. If an author does not remember whether or not he or she received compensation from American Art Review, or believes that American Art Review may be the owner or co-owner for any other reason, pursuit of permission for reprinting is discontinued. In cases of uncertainty TFAO does not subsequently ask American Art Review to research whether or not an author was compensated for an articles published by it, does not seek its permission for reprinting the article, and does not reprint the article. If the author says that an entity other than American Art Review is the owner, the contractor will seek the permission of the owner.

In early 2004 conversations between TFAO and Thomas Kellaway, publisher of American Art Review, Mr. Kellaway stated American Art Review's acceptance of Resource Library reprintings of articles owned by others, as long as TFAO contacts and gains permissions from the owners of articles, accompanying images of art objects are not reprinted, and .pdf images of entire pages are not published by Resource Library. TFAO extends courtesy to American Art Review through an editor's note for each article by stating the issue in which the article appeared in American Art Review and providing a link to the American Art Review website.

Permissions are sought after ownership is established when speaking with each party who claims ownership of an article, except for those instances where the permissions process is discontinued, as explained above.

The contractor may wish to keep field notes on some type of progress form. Click here for a printable copy of a form found in the past to be useful by TFAO in keeping notes.

An author may have written more than one American Art Review article. For infomation on seeking permissions for the other articles or their related catalogue essays, see Compensation for a fully processed text.

4. secure permission with copyright owners for TFAO to reprint texts.

Before seeking approvals of copyright owners, the contractor should become familiar with TFAO's page on Acquisition and deselection of content for the TFAO-dl. This page provides reassurance to copyright owners through TFAO's promises regarding reprinting of texts. TFAO's sample letters may be of benefit to the contractor in phrasing emails or conversation with copyright owners.

Email letters should always be preceded by phone conversations confirming the ownership of texts.

If, during a conversation with a copyright holder, the text's owner wishes to review the digitized and proofread texts produced by the contractor before giving final approval for reprinting, the contractor will email the text as a .doc file to the owner.

TFAO will not send paper copies of online-printed texts to owners. Links will be sent by TFAO as a courtesy when requested.

TFAO has found that referrals to the rights and reproductions departments of museums are almost always errors on the part of the museum. If copyright owners challenge the legitimacy of the contractor's relationship with TFAO they may call TFAO or send an email to TFAO's director for verification. TFAO will be pleased to provide an email letter of introduction for the benefit of the contractor.

5. arrange for copyright owners to send permissions emails directly to TFAO (with CCs to the contractor) indicating their approvals for reprinting online in Resource Library.

The final approval emails from the copyright owners are to be for one time publication in Resource Library,

6. conduct OCR, proofreading and formatting in accordance with Content presentation guidelines to 99.995% accuracy. [See note 1]

TFAO has found over the years that it is helpful to separate proofreading tasks to speed along the process and reduce errors. If a text has footnotes, TFAO suggests first reformatting all of the footnote numbers sprinkled through the essay at the same time (e.g. [25], [26], etc.). This allows the contractor to better keep track of the numerical sequence while proofreading and better insures that footnote numbers in the text are not passed over. The second useful step is to create all paragraph breaks, if needed, including indented paragraphs for long quotes. After that, all other proofreading may be done paragraph by paragraph, attending to items such as multiple periods within quotes (e.g. matter....I said), fixing hyphens (e.g. "plants-and" into double hyphens "plants -- and"), and replacing all en dashes into single plain hyphens, etc. Also hyphenated words at the end of lines in the original text are to be joined back together in the new .doc file. Examples: worth-while, seper-ated.

7. email to TFAO a complete presentation package for each fully processed text to include:

a. forwarded email letter of the contractor's CC copy of the permission from the copyright owner previously sent to TFAO

b. proofread and formatted text in .doc format according to Content presentation guidelines.

c. "about the author" text. For author information the contractor provides either what the text's owner sends to the contractor or uses basic facts from the American Art Review biography such as: "At the time of writing of the above article [author name] was the [job title] at the [name of employer]."

d. Resource Library page header for the article indicating contact information for comments or for securing reprints and the "Editor's note" for the bottom of the page which includes acknowledgements for assistance in gaining permissions and other information.

For the page header TFAO first states the date of permission and the owner of the text. TFAO always wants the reader to have a means of reaching the text owner directly (valid at time of publication as TFAO does not update owner info later on) -- without contacting TFAO. TFAO does not want readers contacting it (usually years later) with the intent of TFAO trying to figure out how to route them to the source. TFAO only provides author/owner's personal information such as email addresses and phone numbers if they expressly want TFAO to do so. Otherwise, regarding author owners, TFAO publishes only the employer's postal address, or web site and/or phone number. Sometimes TFAO publishes information on the last known place of employment as the last resort. Here is a page header example:

Editor's note: The following text was reprinted in Resource Library on [month, day, year] with the permission of [name of copyright holder]. If you have questions or comments regarding the text, please contact [name of copyright holder] directly through this [phone number] and [address]:

[phone number]

[website or other address]

TFAO will add gray color to the text at its office.

For the "Editor's note" TFAO repeats part of the header regarding the permission. Then the date of permission is added. If applicable, reference is then made to an exhibition related to the article. The reference to American Art Review should be as stated in the example. TFAO mentions American Art Review as a courtesy and publishes a link to its website. Lastly, TFAO acknowledges who helped gain the permission. If the article was published in whole earlier in a catalogue or brochure, this first instances of publication is noted. Here is an "Editor's note" example:

Resource Library editor's note:

The above text was reprinted in Resource Library on [month, day, year] with permission of [name of copyright holder], which was granted to TFAO on [month, day, year]. [author's name]'s article pertains to [name and dates of exhibition if applicable]. This text was also published in the [month/year] issue of American Art Review.

Resource Library wishes to extend appreciation to [name of contractor plus any other persons who helped gain permission] for [her/his/their] help concerning permission for reprinting the above text.

At TFAO's office TFAO will activate a link to American Art Review's website and add a disclaimer after the "Editor's note that says:

Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History. Individual pages in this catalogue will be amended as TFAO adds content, corrects errors and reorganizes sections for improved readability. Refreshing or reloading pages enables readers to view the latest updates.

TFAO will make payment to the contractor for an agreed upon number of complete presentation packages after those packages are verified by TFAO to be of satisfactory quality. No payment will be made for partially completed presentation packages.

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