This came through on the archives jiscmail list. What do people think?
I’ve been approached by an author who is producing a picture book for a local history firm.
Generally I’m happy to scan images for locally produced history books within reason. In the past we would have negotiated a contract with such a publisher ourselves but we no longer have the resources. For local authors, in lieu of a reproduction charge, I request a free copy of the title for each image used or perhaps a discount in purchasing copies for the library or resale.
This time the author is looking for us to provide up to 120 scans. This is unreasonable in my view. I’m aware that the publishers won’t provide any funding for reproduction charges and this leaves authors in a difficult position. He has negotiated I believe for 10 free copies of the title – too little in my opinion. He has offered to scan them himself but we don’t allow that.
I’d like to find a compromise– this is a lot of work for us, few staff as usual and with a big digitisation project of our own.
Any suggestions?
CILIP Local Studies Group 
120 photographs – sounds like you’ll be giving him most of the photos for his book. I think this would make you co-authors and you should be getting a slice of the profits – about 50%!
Obviously there are a lot of variables and some information we don’t know, but on the face of it my reaction would be that this is unrealistic and that they need to pay or not use them.
On the sound of it 120 is a very large amount, and will be the bulk of the book I would have thought. Another way to look at it would be to think how much time it would take to search out, scan, send the images and do the admin, and multiply it by your rate, which with on costs etc could be around £30/35 per hour, to show what the cost to your service is. As the person says times are difficult for libraries and other organisations, so we need to maximise any income to try and support/save our services. Of course there may be other local factors and reasons that you may still want to help and there could be a bigger picture.
It has been quite a while since I dealt with authors and publishers in a different post. Most were fine with sending copies of books as payment for images. But occasionally not. One or two publishers (plus a few media) had it down to an artform pleading poverty and trying emotional blackmail, but you knew that they had the money if they wished. When they then push this onto the author and take costs from their fee it seems rather unfair.
Another things to bear in mind (may already know this) would be to have it down in writing for what they will pay/provide (I’ve fallen foul of an author promising books in lieu and then rescinding and denying it), and I’ve also known someone get agreement to copy similar numbers of photos from a collection for a book, and then five years later produced another book with many of the same photos with no extra copies/payment.