The Toolkit brings together resources for creating, managing, and sharing digital collections to address common concerns we often hear, like this one:
I’d like to digitize my community’s high school yearbooks, but I’m concerned about copyright, harmful content and privacy issues, especially if we add these to our online public collection.
Who doesn’t love old yearbooks? The fashions! The hair styles! Libraries often have a complete (or near complete) run and, if not, it is easy to source content to fill in the gaps – “Donate your old yearbook to our digitization project!” Having old yearbooks publicly available online provides excellent community and alumni relationship-building opportunities and may also reduce wear and tear on well-used original copies.
But digitizing and sharing yearbooks online can present challenges. Questions that arise around yearbook projects include copyright and ownership of the books and the content contained within them, personal privacy, and the presence of racist imagery or other potentially harmful content. Before embarking on a project to digitize and provide online public access to your community’s yearbooks, consider the following questions and suggestions.
Copyright
What is the copyright status of the yearbooks? Take a look at the following table from Copyright and the School Yearbook:
| Publication Date | Conditions | Copyright Term |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1925 | None | In public domain |
| 1925-1977 | No copyright notice (meaning published without a © or “Copyright” indicator) | In public domain |
| 1925-1963 | A copyright notice existed but it was not renewed as required after 28 years. Note: only a few publishers or authors ever renewed. | In public domain |
| 1925-1963 | There was a copyright notice and the copyright was renewed. | 95 years after publication |
| 1964-1989 | There was a copyright notice. | 95 years after publication |
After 1977, copyright gets a little murky. Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States (P. Hirtle, Cornell University) is an excellent resource for determining copyright for all types of content including yearbooks. Once you’ve determined copyright, consider providing a collection-level disclaimer or statement on your website, for example: We make digitized yearbooks accessible in the following situations: The yearbooks are in the public domain; we have permission to digitize and make them accessible online; or there are no known restrictions on use. Always provide contact information for copyright and use inquiries, or content take-down requests.
Who owns the rights to photos or other creative works in the yearbook? If a yearbook is still in copyright, discerning who holds the copyright can be tricky. Some schools contracted with a commercial photographer or studio to take student portraits or snap pictures of school events. Students may also have contributed their work to the published yearbook. Find out what type of agreement a school may have had with yearbook content contributors.
Should we check in with the schools involved before digitizing a yearbook? If it is not clear that the yearbook in the public domain, then, yes, it’s a good idea to consult with the institution – the library media specialist or the principal – or its legal department. If it is no longer copyright-protected, you might contact the school out of courtesy or as part of your project outreach plan, but there is no legal requirement to do so.
What about more recent, born-digital yearbooks? More recent yearbooks may only exist in digital format. Check with the school to find out who is the yearbook publisher and whether the publishing agreement allows you to acquire a digital copy and provide online public access. Be sure to ask for a file format compatible with your content management system as some born-digital yearbooks exist in proprietary systems.
Privacy
What content might pose a privacy risk? All yearbooks contain names and photos but some, especially older yearbooks, might include addresses, student physical characteristics (height, weight, etc.), personal notes and signatures and in some cases, Social Security Numbers or other legal identification information. While this may be a data jackpot for genealogists or local historians, consider the implications of having this very personal information discoverable online. For a member of the class of 1905, it is probably not an issue, but a more recent graduate may feel differently. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) designates student education records as confidential information. Part of the education record is “directory information” such as a student’s name, address, telephone number, or other information that could exist in school yearbooks.
What about minors? Almost all students in primary or secondary school yearbooks are (or were at the time of creation) under the age of 18. Consider what might be an appropriate cut-off date for more recent yearbooks to insure a minor’s privacy. Imposing an 18-year limit would keep all minors from being discoverable in your online yearbook collection. Imposing a 5 or 10-year limit would keep minors in high school from being similarly discoverable.
Harmful Content
Is the content within any yearbook potentially harmful to your audience? Yearbooks are intended to be a snapshot in time. As such, they include activities and social norms that, when viewed through a contemporary lens, seem antiquated at best and often shockingly injurious and insulting at worst. Yearbooks, especially older volumes, depict cultural appropriation or re-creation of violent or demeaning events for entertainment, for example black-faced minstrel shows, Native American dress and dancing, hazing activities, slave auctions as fund-raising events, “scalp the Indians” as a sports cheer, hobo parades, and others. Do your homework. Review the volumes and flag any potentially harmful content prior to digitization.
Does this content represent your organizational values or identity, especially when discovered out of context? Ask yourself how you would feel if you bumped into this content online. Some organizations choose to leave this type of content accessible to inspire deeper inquiry and discussion around racism. Others prefer to remove harmful or racist content altogether. Many organizations include on their digital collection’s website a content statement that prepares users for potentially harmful content. Gather your organization and community stakeholders and talk about the potentially harmful content and the desired outcome. Document and share your decision in a collection development policy. Here are a few examples of yearbook content statements from our content partners and beyond:
Here are some resources that can help:
- Copyright Law of the United States
- Copyright and the School Yearbook
- Do student photographs belong to the school or student?
- Protecting the Privacy of Student Education Records
- Thanks for the Memories
- Statement: Recollection Wisconsin Steering Committee Discourages the Use of Prison Labor for Digitization
