PCA Historical Center: Copy Policy

Copy Policy
How to Request Copies of Documents Located through this site:
Basic Guidelines ----- Price per copy ----- Restrictions

Basic Guidelines:
1. After researching the collection indexes and/or using the search engine to locate your materials, please contact the Director of the PCA Historical Center and place your request.
2. We may then reply with more information about the files that you are requesting, how many pages are involved, etc., in order to confirm your order and to make sure that we are supplying precisely what you need.
3. If you will also state the nature of your research and what you are looking for, we may also be able to locate additional materials of interest.

Price per copy:
Paper Documents - Copies of most documents may be obtained by the public at the rate of twenty-five cents per single-sided sheet, plus postage [Effective as of 1 March 2003]. Minimum order is $5.00.
No more than 20% of the total of any one collection may be photocopied.

Photographs - Images are posted in JPG format, a format which should be adequate for most users, but which will lose some data in migration from the original. Researchers requiring more precise information or detail from an image may request a TIFF format version of an image. A fee of $10.00 per TIFF image will be charged. Photographic paper prints will be quoted on request.

Copyright: The purchaser is responsible for observing all copyright law in relation to these documents.

Restrictions on Specific Materials: You should be aware that some materials are under restricted access and may not be copied. These restrictions are detailed below.
Presbytery and Session records are held as restricted materials, due to the nature of the pastoral issues that may be discussed within these records, and so are normally available only to verified members of those bodies. The usual length of this viewing restriction is fifty years from the date of origin, unless otherwise noted. Researchers who desire to examine specific records should first contact the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery or Session in question, requesting a letter of written permission. [We will be happy to supply you with the proper addresses.] The original of this letter should be sent by the Stated Clerk directly to the PCA Historical Center and upon receipt, those specific records can then be made available. A relative few collections are either in part or in whole under a viewing restriction due to their sensitive content. Outside of Presbytery and Session records, perhaps less than 1% of the Center's holdings fall into this category. Where they occur, these restrictions are prominently posted in the finding aids of the Collection.