Amendment of Rules Relating to Municipal Archives and Municipal Reference Library – City of New York – October 23, 2020

I saw this last night, but wasn’t sure when it posted on the City of New York website – Amendment of Rules Relating to Municipal Archives and Municipal Reference Library: https://rules.cityofnewyork.us/content/amendment-rules-relating-municipal-archives-and-municipal-reference-library. IAJGS Public Records Access Alert posted it to their mailing list on September 27, 2020. To view the list, you have to registered on their list. You can register at: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/listinfo/records-access-alerts. Read the instructions if you aren’t already on the list.

Statement of Basis and Purpose of Proposed Rule

The Department of Records & Information Services recognizes its responsibility to facilitate access to Municipal Archives and Library materials that may contain confidential information.The proposed new rules and amendments will enable public access to these materials while protecting the privacy rights of individuals who may be named in such records.The amendments to the fees chedule (sic) are proposed to account for the use of digital technologies in completing reproduction requests.

Here are the increases:

Some of the increased fees include:

1. raising the charge from $15.00 to $18.00 for a certified copy of a vital record of a birth, death or marriage record when a certificate number is provided, for one year/ one borough/one name and for issuance of a certificate say the record is “not found”.  Additional handling charges will apply for services requested via epayments.
2. Charging $2.00 for each additional year to be searched in one city/borough for the same name
3. Charging $2.00 for each additional city/borough for the same name
4. Publication or license fee for use of a reproduction of a still photograph, image or document or other archival item.  Educational, scholarly or non-profit products or media starts at $15.00 and increase for commercial products or media.
5. $40 charge for commercial use of moving images per second.
6. $10 charge for commercial use of moving images, per second.
7. $50 per hour charge for conducting original research for patrons not including copies.
8. $125 per hour charge for conservation services and exhibition load preparation requested by institutions, per hour, not including materials.
9. Increase from $15.00 to $18.00 for paper or digital  property card pertaining to one block and lot.
10. Certification of property cards relating to one block or lot.
11. Still images for personal use only, $45.00 for high resolution non-watermarked digital copy of any two-dimensional item with size restrictions; $65.00 for larger size copies; $40.00 per additional 100 pages or documents ordered at the same time.
12. Hard copy prints: $40- 8’x10”; $60 -11’x14”; $120.00 16”x20” plus extra charges for shipping and handling
13. $100.00 high-resolution non-watermarked digital copy of moving image tape or film per title.
14. Charges for photocopying services vary from $0.25 per page to $0.50 per page.  No charge for use of personal camera.