Use of electronic resources policy

The electronic resources provided by the CITY ULE Library, including databases, e-book collections, and e-journal collections are intended solely for non-commercial, educational, and personal research purposes. Any commercial use of licensed materials is strictly prohibited. Failure to comply with this restriction may result in the loss of access to these resources for the entire institution.

When utilizing licensed electronic resources, users must adhere to the following guidelines:

• Restrict usage to non-commercial, educational, or personal research purposes.
• Refrain from compiling data or information retrieved from licensed resources into separate databases intended for public use.
• Prevent unauthorized access by others (e.g., users must not share their personal IT accounts credentials with third parties).
• Avoid systematic downloading of licensed content, such as downloading entire journal issues or extracting substantial portions of database content to create independent collections.
• Comply with the specific licensing terms associated with each resource, as these agreements may impose stricter limitations than copyright law.
• Do not distribute copies of licensed materials to individuals or groups outside the University community unless explicitly permitted by the relevant license.
• Do not share client software used for accessing licensed resources with individuals or groups outside the University community.
• Provide appropriate attribution when quoting or referencing material from electronic resources.

Guidance for Academic Staff

1. Many licensing agreements impose restrictions on downloading and reposting licensed content on external servers, even for instructional purposes such as module-related websites or electronic reserves. As a best practice, it is advisable to use persistent links to electronic articles rather than storing them directly on institutional servers.
2. Most content providers consider data-mining or automated crawling of their materials to be an improper use of their resources. Academic staff members planning projects that require data-mining or automated content retrieval from library databases must consult their designated library liaison to obtain prior authorization.