If you are using the fonts required by the Thesis Handbook (Times New Roman 12 point or Arial 11 point) you won't need to worry about this. If you use other, less common fonts in your thesis document you should consider embedding the fonts. ProQuest provides guidance on page 3 of the below document.
Remove potentially sensitive material such as interview transcripts and images that may have special copyright issues.
The thesis document you upload must be a single PDF document. ProQuest provides guidance in the Creating PDFs section of the Electronic Theses and Dissertations website. You can also contact the Library if you need assistance creating a single PDF document. Instructions on how to do this are provided on page 3 of the below document.
Review the single PDF document to ensure all sections of the paper are in the correct order and pagination matches the table of contents.
Prepare an abstract describing your thesis. This can be the same abstract used in your thesis document. You will need to copy and paste it into the ProQuest submission form. More information on abstracts is provided on page 2 of the below document.
Before submitting your thesis to ProQuest either:
1. Confirm all interviewees agree to the inclusion of their interview transcripts in the copy of your thesis that will be available in the ProQuest database.
or
2. Remove the transcript from the thesis document to be submitted to ProQuest
The publishing agreement you will sign with ProQuest states that all copyright responsibility rests with the thesis author and the author is responsible for ensuring copyrighted material is either used in accordance to Fair Use (see also the flow chart below) or securing permission to include material currently under copyright.
Decisions regarding what and how images are included in a thesis submitted to ProQuest depend on the author's interpretation of and philosophy regarding Fair Use. Below is information for four of the more common options. Sotheby's Institute of Art - New York does not officially recommend one particular option. It is entirely the author's choice.
All images are included with full source and attribution information but without requesting specific permission to include them in the ProQuest version of your thesis as their inclusion is interpreted as "fair use"
If you are using an intellectual work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research then you are more than likely falling under the fair use principle of copyright, and therefore it may be used without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.
The Visual Resources Association with the assistance of a legal advisory committee recently released an opinion statement clearly stating (pages 11-12) that reproducing images in theses and dissertations is consistent with "fair use".
The VRA report has a list of five helpful suggestions for using images in theses and dissertations on page 12 of the report.
If you wish to err on the side of caution regarding Fair Use and copyright or if you are considering publishing your thesis or part of your thesis beyond ProQuest you can request permission to reproduce material under copyright or potentially under copyright.
- sample permission request letters are available in the Finding and Using Images Guide: Get Copyright Permission Section
- permission letters from copyright holders can be uploaded as part of the ProQuest submission process
Images may also be removed from the thesis document submitted to ProQuest. If you select this option it is suggested you insert a blank placeholder for the image and retain the caption for the image (example below). Removing images from your thesis will probably render it less useful to other scholars.
A thumbnail size image is 97px in height, can be considered fair use and may provide enough visual information to enhance your argument.
For more information please see our Finding and Using Images Guide: Copyright and Permissions.
All Library Guides by Sotheby's Institute of Art New York Library are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 3rd-party content including, but not limited to images and linked items, are subject to their own license terms.