Virtual Volunteering: Sample Inquiry Letters - "request for permission to republish an essay to various sources"

Sample Inquiry Letters:

"request for permission to republish an essay to various sources"

Volunteers write email letters on behalf of TFAO from their own computers using their personal email addresses. The following letters may be used as templates for tailoring an email to an individual in a museum or to a private source to request permission to republish an essay.

Subject: request for permission to republish an essay to an author at a museum

Dear

Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering education in American art through grants, online publication and research. A special TFAO emphasis is building an archive of material, authored by scholars and other informed individuals, beneficial for the study of art history in the United States. The home page for TFAO is located at <http://www.tfaoi.org>.

As a public service, without charge to readers, TFAO publishes scholarly articles and essays relating to American representational art in its publication Resource Library. For Resource Library's home page please see <http://tfaoi.org/resourc.htm>.

TFAO will be pleased to publish your essay within the catalogue for the exhibit "___________________________" online (without illustrations) in Resource Library. Benefits of this service may be found at <http://www.tfaoi.org/aa/4aa/4aa338l.htm>.

If agreeable, please send the essay with accompanying footnotes in .doc file format or as plain text in an email. Please do not send paper-printed catalogues, .pdf files or .docx files.

Please note additionally in your email to us your permission as copyright owner and/or the Museum's permission, as copyright owner, for TFAO to reprint online in Resource Library the corresponding essay. Please send necessary approvals and your essay to us at the same time.

We further invite you to send an author biography to accompany the essay.

Best regards,

Subject: essay publ. req. to museum - unnamed authors

Dear

For essays exceeding 650 words in length, within the catalogue for the exhibit referenced above, TFAO will be pleased to publish them online (without illustrations) in Resource Library. Benefits of this service may be found at <http://www.tfaoi.org/aa/4aa/4aa338l.htm>.

If agreeable, please send the essay or essays with accompanying footnotes in .doc file format or as plain text in an email. Please do not send paper-printed catalogues, .pdf files or .docx files.

Please note additionally in your email to us your institution's permission, as copyright owner of each essay, for TFAO to reprint online in Resource Library the corresponding essay. If your organization does not solely own the copyright, please ask other copyright holders to email their approvals to you so that you may send all approvals and essays to us at the same time.

We further invite you to send an author biography to accompany each essay.

Best regards,

Subject: essay publ. req. to museum for 1 named author

Dear

If the essay by __________________ within the catalogue for the exhibit exceeds 650 words in length, TFAO will be pleased to publish it online (without illustrations) in Resource Library. Benefits of this service may be found at <http://www.tfaoi.org/aa/4aa/4aa338l.htm>.

If agreeable, please send the essay with accompanying footnotes in .doc file format or as plain text in an email. Please do not send paper-printed catalogues, .pdf files or .docx files.

Please note additionally in your email to us your institution's permission, as copyright owner, for TFAO to reprint online in Resource Library the corresponding essay. If your organization does not solely own the copyright, please ask other copyright holders to email their approvals to you so that you may send all approvals and essays to us at the same time.

We further invite you to send an author biography to accompany the essay.

Best regards,

Subject: essay publ. req. to museum for named authors

Dear

TFAO will be pleased to publish online essays (without illustrations) exceeding 650 words of text by _________________________ in Resource Library, Benefits of this service may be found at <http://www.tfaoi.org/aa/4aa/4aa338l.htm> as well as information on additional online publishing options.

If agreeable, please send the essay or essays with accompanying footnotes in .doc file format or as plain text in an email. Please do not send paper-printed catalogues, .pdf files or .docx files.

We further invite you to send an author biography to accompany each essay.

Best regards,

Subject: essay publishing request to private source

Dear

For essays exceeding 650 words in length, within the book referenced above, TFAO will be pleased to publish them online (without illustrations) in Resource Library. Benefits of this service may be found at <http://tfaoi.org/aa/4aa/4aa338c.htm> as well as information on additional online publishing options.

If agreeable, please send the essay or essays with accompanying footnotes in .doc file format or as plain text in an email. Please do not send paper-printed catalogues, .pdf files or .docx files.

Please note additionally in your email to us your organization's permission, as copyright owner of each essay, for TFAO to reprint online in Resource Library the corresponding essay. If your organization does not solely own the copyright, please ask other copyright holders to email their approvals to you so that you may send all approvals and essays to us at the same time.

We further invite you to send an author biography to accompany each essay.

Best regards,

Subject: Essay published but not indexed pending author's review

Dear

Your essay is published on our website at < > but not yet indexed. Therefore it would be quite hard to find at this point. When indexed, people will be able to learn from your scholarship worldwide and many thousands will read it.

Please note that we use certain conventions to allow texts to be placed on our website. Our content presentation guidelines are at <http://www.tfaoi.org/aa/4aa/4aa150.htm>. After reviewing our guidelines please check the text for errors.

Here is the file you sent as reference:

(copy of file here)

We added a temporary biography for you. We found it on the Web. Please edit it so that it is current.

We will append (more texts) to the published and indexed essay as you send them. They may be added over time -- even one at a time -- after the essay is published for viewing by the public. We commonly add at later dates additional materials to published articles and essays.

For the images, if you are unsure of rights clearance for images to be used in this context, the thumbnails such as you sent may be a safer route, or if you judge it most prudent, it may be best to not include images at all. We do not include images with texts unless we are comfortable that there is copyright holder approval for use of the images. That is why almost all of the hundreds of essays published by us are unaccompanied by images. We do not have the time or resources to track down image copyright holders. If your understanding is that you have copyright holder approvals, we will append images to the published and indexed essay as you send them. They may be added over time after the essay is published for viewing by the public.

Best,

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About volunteering at TFAO

Traditional Fine Arts Organization's (TFAO) Digital Library and its publication Resource Library welcome volunteers to further the broadening of knowledge of American representational art. College interns are also welcome.

When you become a virtual volunteer you can help TFAO any time and anywhere. Projects are completed off-site in residences of volunteers or at other locations where access to the Internet and/or OCR scanning equipment are available.

Virtual volunteering is suited for individuals studying library science, art history and and others who enjoy research in order to expand and make more readily available knowledge of American fine arts. Interns and volunteers choose their own hours. We are proud to acknowledge our volunteers' efforts in published texts. Project-related out-of-pocket expenses are reimbursable.

Do you want to learn more about virtual volunteering at TFAO? Please send an email to:

Search Resource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.