Permissions and Citations

All public state and local records in the custody of the State Archives of North Carolina are in the public domain and may be cited and published without permission. We do ask that the Archives be credited as the custodian of these materials.

Most non-public record materials housed at the State Archives may be cited or reproduced where the state of North Carolina clearly holds title to the materials. It is the practice of the State Archives to generate a formal letter granting permission for reproduction or reuse. In most cases we will respond to your request within five business days.

For your convenience, you can use the following forms to complete your request to publish materials located at the State Archives or at the following satellite facilities at the Outer Banks History Center and the Western Regional Archives:

As a rule, our institution does not sign release forms for permission to publish. If you have a question regarding this policy, please let us know. Normally, our permission release letter is sufficient for most publishers.

If our standard permission release is not sufficient for your use, then any changes to our standard permission release will require legal review, which may take up to a month or more to complete.

The registrar is responsible for researching and determining the status of materials in the custody of the State Archives. The State Archives does house restricted materials and materials with no clear copyright. In some cases, we can provide you a reference to the copyright holder.

Credit Line

Please use the following statement when crediting State Archives materials, "Courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina."

Guidelines for Citing State Archives Materials

For more information about obtaining permissions, please contact the State Archives registrar:

William H. Brown, Registrar
State Archives of North Carolina
4614 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4614
919-814-6850
William.h.brown@ncdcr.gov