ACS Publications Copyright Forms and Information

Permissions Request Guidelines to Use Material from the ACS Publications Division

General Information

For permission to use ACS Publications Division's copyrighted material, requests must be in writing to the ACS Copyright Office.

Exception: Authors and employers are granted certain rights back to them on the ACS Copyright Status Form.

For example, authors may use their own tables and figures in other scholarly research papers that they write, without writing to ACS for permission. Full credit to the original source should be given, for example:

Reproduced with permission from J. Org. Chem. 1998, 63, 99-194. Copyright 1998 American Chemical Society.

When submitting a request via e-mail, you must include your name, employer, your or your employer's address, phone, fax number, and the information listed below; we do not reply via e-mail, but we will reply via fax or regular mail (if you do not have a fax number).

A fee may be assessed. All requests must be in writing. We do not grant permission over the phone, nor do we grant blanket permission. Complete reference citations must be given for all requested material.

Permission is not needed if figures/tables from one ACS journal will be reused in a forthcoming ACS journal article. This only applies to figures/tables that appeared in ACS journals; permission must still be obtained for figures/tables that appear in ACS magazines or books.

Requesters should provide the following information:

1. Title of ACS work;
2. Full bibliographic reference information (name of ACS journal, book, or magazine, issue date, volume number, issue number, page numbers; if an ACS book, give the book editor's name(s), the chapter author's name(s), the series title and number, year of publication, and pages);
3. What you intend to use, e.g. full article (how many copies?), figures 2, 5, 6 only, a portion of the article (mention the percentage and send a marked copy of the ACS text you plan to use), etc. For figures/tables requests, send only one request letter or permissions form and attach a list of the figure/tables with their complete reference citations, organized by ACS journal title. If you request more than three items from any one paper, the author's permission will also be required;
4. Where it will be reused:
1. If making individual photocopies, where will they be distributed, such as at a conference, to customers, in-house to employees only, etc.
2. If the work will be republished, let us know if the ACS material will be published in a book, journal, or magazine, give us the title of the work, the name of the publisher of the work in which the ACS material will appear, the editor's name of the book, the title and list of chapter authors' names, etc.
5. The deadline by which you need this permission; we will try to meet your deadline, but keep in mind that our normal turnaround times are 3-4 working days for figures/tables requests, and 3-6 working days for full article requests.
6. For classroom use requests, please send us your name, address, phone number, fax number, the professor's name and class name/no., the university name, the number of students in the class (copies/article), and the journal/magazine/book reference citation. We will send you a form to complete, sign, date, and return to us. For course packets, please report your copying activity directly to the Copyright Clearance Center at (978) 750-8400.
7. ACS does not grant permission to post its articles on websites or to link to its journal articles.
1. If you are the author, or if the author was employed by your organization when the paper was written, you may post the bibliographic information, the abstract (or 200 words of text), and the figures and tables. Please give copyright credit to the source. You do not need our permission to post this material because those rights are granted back to authors/employers on the ACS Copyright Status Form.
2. If you are not the author, or if the author was not employed by your organization when the paper was written, you may request permission to post the bibliographic information and either the abstract or 200 words of text. Please specify which you prefer. If permission is granted, the appropriate copyright credit line must be posted along with the material. Use of the material should not imply any endorsement by the American Chemical Society.

The more information you supply to us, the faster we can process your request. It is helpful if you would supply photocopies of any artwork, photographs, or other materials along with your request. Please include your telephone number and your fax number in the body of your letter; we find it difficult to read phone/fax numbers on letterheads, particularly if this information is printed in a small font size.

Credit Lines

Should permission be granted to you, we will require that you print the ACS copyright credit line on the first page of the article or book chapter. For figures and tables, the credit may appear with the figure, in a footnote, or in the reference list. For figures, tables, and journal articles, the standard credit line is

Reprinted with permission from [reference citation]. Copyright [year] American Chemical Society.
[Example: Reprinted with permission from Environ. Sci. Technol. 2000, 34, 75-83. Copyright 2000 American Chemical Society.]

For book chapters, the following credit line should be followed:

Reprinted with permission from Reed, W. In Strategies in Size Exclusion Chromatography; Potschka, M.; Dubin, P.L., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 635, American Chemical Society: Washington, D.C., 1996; pp 7-35. Copyright 1996 American Chemical Society.

Questions: Send e-mail to copyright@acs.org or call Arleen Courtney at (202) 872-4368.

Titles Published by Other ACS Divisions

Some of the titles that are published by ACS, but not by the Publications Division are listed below. Please forward your permission request to the appropriate party:

Preprints

Contact the individual author to find out if he/she assigned copyright in writing to an ACS division. If the author has not signed any copyright transfer forms, then the author (or the author's employer) still holds the copyright and you should contact the author for permission.

Updated: Jun. 23, 2008