Notice of Intent to Digitize Back Issues of <I>The London Journal</I>

Abstract

With the help of Maney Publishing, The London Journal Trust intend to scan and make available in electronic form the back issues of The London Journal. As a means of easy access to previously published papers, of which few members and institutional subscribers will have copies, we expect this to be a considerable enhancement to all interested readers and keep alive an archive of important scholarly work for the future. Many of you will be familiar with the current procedure in which authors assign copyright (for both print and electronic publication) to The London Journal Trust. This does not limit an author’s ability to reuse material, but ensures that Maney, on the Trust’s behalf, can protect the copyright internationally. The papers we published previously, in back issues, were not administered in this way, nor was permission sought to obtain electronic rights. Such a form of publishing was never conceived. It would exceed the resources available to the Trust to identify all the authors who have previously contributed to The London Journal and obtain their (or their Estate executors’ where an author is deceased) permission to republish their work electronically. In any case, we are very doubtful that the addresses that we had at the time of publication are still current. We are therefore writing this notice to ask for any authors who object to the proposed policy to let us know as soon as possible. We think it will be a pity, but if the permission is withdrawn, we will reluctantly omit their work from the scanned back archive. This will inevitably distort the record to a certain extent, but we will respect the decision. We expect this notice will be seen and read by most people involved in the activities of The London Journal Trust, and we would be grateful if you could draw it to the attention of all your colleagues. We will be proceeding with this scanning project in the next few months, and need to ensure that notice of our intentions is disseminated widely.