A: Frank Wilson, Professor of Mathematics, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Chandler, AZ:

"When I wanted to use an image from weather.com, I tracked down permissions guidelines from the website and requested permission to use the image. Permission was granted and my publisher took it from there. However, due to the difficulty in tracking down permissions guidelines for many online images, I have chosen to select most of my images from commercial stock photo websites such as www.corbis.com. The site has a plethora of high quality images and my publisher is accustomed to working with this company on permissions. Another company is Getty Images."

A: Chris Harris, Professor of Electronic Media Communications, Middle Tennessee University, Murfreesboro, TN:

"STOP and think about what you are saying: I want the cheapest visual to illustrate the book that I hope to become a prominent player in my field. Success will never come from loss of good visuals. There are many ways to find inexpensive, but highly usable, visuals. Also, lets be very aware that visual artists (photographers, designers, graphic designers and the rest of that creative sector) are covered by the same copyright laws as are words, there are a myriad number of ways to locate information as to who to contact for permissions. I will have a presentation at next year's conference in Las Vegas [2008 TAA Conference at Harrah's, June 19-21] on just this subject. Hope to see you there!"

Q: "I was wondering after reading your e-mail whether there are substantial charges regarding images from large professional groups such as Getty. I have no budget for art in my contract so if I decide to use them it will most likely come out of my pocket. Any suggestions?"

A: Dr. Laura Taalman, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, James Madison University:

"I had about 12 images from such a source in a textbook of mine, and the publisher put the charges on my royalty account. (So I didn't have to pay, but I lost some royalties.) The total charges were about $400, but at least two of the images were of Escher artwork, which I remember hearing had their own special restrictions and perhaps higher prices."

A: Frank Wilson, Professor of Mathematics, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Chandler, AZ:

"Individual image charges vary but are prominently displayed next to each image on the Corbis website. My contract calls on the publisher to pay for all photos so I haven't monitored the pricing too closely . . . I have, however, included some of the pictures I have taken personally in my books. There was no permissions fee for those."

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