We would like to respond to a recent article in American Libraries Magazine
( T. Gaughan, March issue). Concerning the copyright policies of Gordon and
Breach and Harwood Journals, and deposit requirements under UK and US laws.

Regarding deposit requirements - as Swiss publishers which do not distribute
in the UK., Gordon and  Breach and Harwood are exempt from UK legal deposit
requirements.

 This has been confirmed by the legal representative of the British Library.
 Also these publishers have not deposited copies with the Library of
Congress because they contend they are not required to.  Because there are
so many other foreign publishers in the world that do not and are not
required to deposit copies with the LC, one can only  speculate on why this
article focused on Gordon and Breach and Harwood. There are other Gordon and
Breach Publishing Group companies which publish in other foreign countries
and these companies have never been asked to deposit with either the British
Library or the LC, except for one British Company  which regularly  deposits
copies as required. It is only because Gordon and Breach and Harwood did
deposit with these libraries when they  published in the respective
countries and obtained copyright and CIP data locally that the question was
raised. As we no longer publish in the US and CIP data is obtained locally,
we have been advised that the law does not apply . Should we publish any
works in these venues in future, these works would be subject to deposit.

There was also a previous article in American Libraries ( T. Gaughan, Feb
issue) that contained wrong information about the copyright policies, as
well as other things already clarified in the SERIALST. We hope
that  all readers are now clear in the understanding that, although Swiss
law applies to Gordon and Breach and Harwood as Swiss publishers,
Switzerland is a member of the Berne convention which holds that a
subscriber's own national law applies regarding activities under "fair use".
Therefore, at no rate are we restricting the subscriber's activity as
permitted under their own national copyright law.

We are grateful for forums like SERIALST where one has the opportunity
to not only answer questions quickly, but to correct misinformation without
relying on the decision of those who printed it to do so. Thank you.

Christopher Schneider
VP-Sales/Marketing
<Christopher.Schneider@gbpub.com>