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Conditions of Use and Licensing Restrictions for Electronic Resources

Content section: 

The Library subscribes to thousands of electronic journals, books and other databases for use by authorized users (current faculty, students and staff and, in most cases, on-site visitors). The terms and conditions for using these resources are set out in electronic resource license agreements with each publisher. It is the responsibility of individual users to ensure their use of electronic resources does not breach the terms and conditions specified in the license agreements. Licenses vary from publisher to publisher; however, the general principles are:

Engagement in any of the activities included in the Not Permitted list below may result in an immediate suspension of the patron’s access to online library resources.

Permitted Not Permitted
  • viewing, downloading, copying, printing and saving a copy of search results
  • viewing, downloading, copying, printing and saving individual articles
  • using e-resources for scholarly, educational or scientific research, teaching, private study and clinical purposes
  • sending a copy of an article to another authorized user (i.e. current faculty, students or staff)
  • posting the URL to the publisher's version of the article on a class website (publisher links will allow only authorized users access)
  • use of robots or intelligent agents to do systematic, bulk or automatic downloading is not permitted
  • systematic downloading or printing of entire journal issues or volumes, or large portions of other e-resources is not permitted
  • using e-resources for commercial gain is not permitted (i.e. reselling, redistributing or republishing licensed content)
  • transmitting, disseminating or otherwise making online content available to unauthorized users (i.e. sending to mailing lists or electronic bulletin boards) is not permitted
  • posting the publisher's version or PDF of an article to an open class website is not permitted (instead, post the URL to the article which will allow only authorized users access)

Breaches of the University's contractual arrangements with publishers could result in the suspension of access to the resources for the entire UC Berkeley community.

Full licenses for many publishers, specifying all the terms and conditions, are available at their websites. Copies of agreements entered into by the California Digital Library (CDL) on behalf of the University of California system can be viewed at: cdlib.org/services/collections/licensed/resources/redacted-license-agreements/.

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