Case Study 6: Freelance Writer Max A.

11/19/2004:  Max A. wrote for a paper that hires all its writers on a freelance basis. We are in the process of contacting authors individually to obtain permission to display their articles, as explained above. Max A. was no longer with the paper, and the editor I worked with had no information on his whereabouts.  I did an Internet search and found Max A.'s name on the website of an agency that represented writers. 

11/19/2004:  I e-mailed the agency and told them I was trying to contact Max A., and asked that they forward to him my request for his mailing address so that I could send him a permissions packet. 

11/20/2004:  Received an e-mail from Max A., in which he provided his phone number and asked me to call him.

12/22/2004:  I called Max A. and we discussed our project.  He provided his mailing address and said he would be willing to sign our permission form.

12/22/2004:  I sent Max A. a permissions packet, including a cover letter and a list of the articles by him that we have in our database presently. The cover letter follows my standard format, and includes the sentence, "The articles cited here represent only the portion of your material we have already scanned, but there is much more material in our files that is yet to be catalogued and scanned, and we would like your permission to display your articles as we scan them and add them to our database."

1/10/05: Received signed permission form.