Digital Collections Policies

Tulane University complies with the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a United States copyright law. The public repositories managed by Tulane University Libraries ( for example, the Tulane University Digital Library or Tulane University Journal Publishing) are intended to provide long-term access to and preservation of works of scholarship and other materials supporting the research and teaching mission of Tulane University. In order to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record, works that are deposited in Tulane University Libraries digital repositories will only be withdrawn under a small number of circumstances. Authors/depositors may not on their own withdraw or delete anything they have deposited, and instead must make a request that will be reviewed by relevant library or university staff (for example, library copyright experts, university DMCA agent, deans or other administrators), and acted on as appropriate by repository managers.

Withdrawing items from repositories managed by Tulane University Libraries

Deaccessioning ¹ refers to a range of approaches to changing objects and their access levels, such approaches range from changing access rights for objects to fully purging objects, its access layer, and all local and disparate backups.

Some reasons why items may be withdrawn:

• The item was deposited in error, and has only been available for a few days
• The item contains information that is sensitive, restricted, or otherwise should not be public
• The item is in violation of copyright or other laws, or of Tulane University policies
• The item has been proven to be fraudulent or plagiarized
• Continued online access poses a legitimate and proximate threat to the safety or wellbeing of an individual

Reasons that do not by themselves justify withdrawal:

• Author/depositor is embarrassed by something they wrote/deposited earlier
• Someone is offended/embarrassed or potentially offended/embarrassed by the item
• The item is outdated or superseded by a new version
• In cases where authors have a new version that supersedes the previously posted one, they can request that a note be added to the old one to refer readers to the new item, with an explanation
• Author intends to publish elsewhere, so wishes earlier version to no longer be available

Any requests for items to be withdrawn will be reviewed by the appropriate library staff and/or the university’s DMCA agent. In some cases items may be temporarily withdrawn from public view while the problem is investigated, and then returned to public view if reasons for withdrawal are not deemed to meet the above standards. For copyright-related takedown requests, you may also refer to Tulane University's general Copyright Notice and Copyright Infringement policy.  

Please submit all requests to deaccession materials via DMCA and Deaccession Request Form, linked below.