Practice Article

Reusing Figures in Research: New License Clauses Eliminate Need for Permissions or Payments

---

Abstract

Introduction: Academic authors typically seek permissions and pay a fee if they want to reuse figures, images, tables, or other brief excerpts from previously published works in their own publications. This process can be time-consuming and costly, presenting a real barrier for authors. However, in many cases, this convention may be unnecessary. Electronic resource (e-resource) licenses that libraries sign with publishers often now include clauses that permit the use, with appropriate credit, of such content from licensed materials by authorized users in their own publications for personal, scholarly, or educational purposes.

Description of Program: This paper describes a project that we undertook to investigate which of our library’s current licenses include such a clause. We focused on licenses for the largest journal collections, likely the content most often cited by authors. Of the 23 licenses we reviewed, 19 had clauses permitting reuse. We anticipated that informing authors about this topic would be a challenge, so we thought carefully about strategies, developing a comprehensive communications plan to guide these efforts. Finally, we discuss several cases of authors helped by this project and how we shared our learning with colleagues in other libraries.

Next steps: We plan to add this clause to our list of recommended licensing terms, incorporating it into more of our direct licenses with vendors from now on. Also, because many authors who we support are graduate students writing their theses or dissertations, we hope to empower student authors in considering the fair dealing copyright exemption for reusing figures in the future.

Keywords: Copyright, licenses, e-resources contracts, permissions, reusing content, scholarly publishing

How to Cite:

Dawson, D., Langrell, K. & McLean, J. (2024). Reusing Figures in Research: New License Clauses Eliminate Need for Permissions or Payments. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 12(1), eP17681. https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.17681

Rights:

© 2024 The Author(s). License: CC BY 4.0