General Policy Statement
The GFA Archive promotes the preservation and enjoyment of the
guitar's musical heritage through a shared and centralized cataloging effort
and through a liberal policy of dissemination on demand, at fees which are
designed only to cover operating costs. It attempts to provide a means
whereby individual collectors may share with other interested guitarists the
rare music and guitar related materials which they have acquired over the
years.
As is true with several other scholarly special collections
(the Deutschea Musikgeschichtliches Archiv in Kassel; the "Stablein"
microfilm archive of medieval manuscript in Erlagen; the microfilm library
of the Lute Society of America in California), the GFA Archive often does
not own original editions of the printed guitar music in its catalog. Many
of the cataloged works are photostats (XE) or microfilms (MF) of originals
in private hands or in various public and private libraries in the U.S. and
abroad. The reproductions were legitimately secured at one time or another
by members of the GFA or by friends sympathetic to the organization's
artistic and scholarly goals, and now are being shared in a non-profit
context in conformity with the donors' wishes.
The Directors of the GFA recognize that the interests of our
Membership, and of scholarship in general, are sometimes at odds with the
proprietary interests of the libraries which own original editions of guitar
music. Hence we pursue a course of reason, fairness, and compromise in
reminding those who borrow or copy our microfilms or photostats of originals
located elsewhere to credit the owners of the originals whenever much
credit is appropriate, and to apply to the owners for permission to publish.
We leave the stamp of the originating library on any copy we provide, in
order to facilitate credit where credit is due. And while recognizing the
rights of owners of originals to acknowledgment and, in the
case
of
manuscripts, to oversee publication rights, we also recognize the rights of
owners of copies to share their materials, as they wish, as
a
means of furthering the study and performance of guitar music.
The GFA Archive thus is a service organization, offering the
musical and scholarly communities not so much a wealth of original editions
in one location as a wealth of convenience. It promotes dissemination - the
surest guarantee of preservation. And by its very existence, the GFA Archive
proclaims that not only originals, but also microforms and photostats
of rare material have genuine, if derivative, value. They are certainly
worth cataloging, publicizing, preserving, and sharing.
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Last updated: 29 July 1999
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