copyright in the digitized object?

Recently, our university library made available a public domain item (government document published in 1904) on the web in digital format. Specifically, we OCR'd an historical text, which is not rare, but it is a primary source document valuable to researchers in particular fields.

A publisher contacted us and asked permission to capture the text from our web site and reprint in book format which they in turn plan to sell. Since the book is not rare, the publisher could certainly make photocopies of the original document to reprint, but prefers our text, for whatever reason.

Of course many commercial publishers take public domain government documents and charge high prices for value-added services such as additional indexing, etc. We have put value in the document, by digitizing it. But other than that, the value lies in the ability to keyword search it, and follow the links we've provided, which doesn't help the publisher who will just print it. Is the value to the publisher that the text is digitized and can be presented in any manner (font, appearance, etc.), and they're not tied to a photocopy of the original document?

Did the publisher have to ask permission or were they just being courteous?

Feedback appreciated.

Julia Crawford
Oklahoma State University
juliac[_at_]okstate.edu Received on Mon Feb 28 2000 - 20:33:38 GMT