Responsible Use of Electronic Resources

Things to know:

• excessive or systematic downloading of articles, citations or chapters of an electronic resource may result in access being denied
• sharing electronic resources with non-authorized users is prohibited
• sharing passwords, placing licensed materials on a publicly accessible website, and commercial use of licensed information is prohibited

Reasonable downloading and printing reasonable portions of licensed materials is allowed and encouraged.

What are license agreements and why does the library sign them?
The Libraries cannot provide access to most research and scholarly publications without a signed license agreement. Publishers want these agreements to prevent unauthorized use of copyrighted works.  Licenses describe who can use the resource, how it may be used, and consequences of misuse.

What is excessive downloading?
Definitions differ, but publishers generally consider multiple sequential chapters of a book or more than half of an entire issue of a journal excessive. Violations are tracked through IP addresses. They may cut access to a particular resource or a set of resources based on that IP, which may affect one computer, an entire building, or the entire K-State campus. If the Libraries do not adequately address the violation, the publisher has the right to terminate our license and permanently remove access to their resources.  

But it's on the web... it's free!
Not necessarily! Sometimes you will see branding on an electronic resource to indicate the resource is being provided to you by K-State.  However, in many instances, publishers don't have the ability to let us place our brand on individual titles that you may be accessing via the web. You may stumble across relevant research and not even realize that you are only able to access the content because the Libraries have paid for access to the resource.

Who are authorized users?
The majority of license agreements define authorized users as faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students.

Additional questions about the appropriate use of licensed information resources may be directed to .