Anne-Marie:
Most academic electronic serials access contracts allow for a walk-in exception; that is, if a user is physically present in the Library and
using a computer owned by the Library, use is allowed, though the usual prohibitions concerning Fair Use and systematic downloads still apply. At that point it becomes a matter of policing the use of your computers. Most universities that I am familiar with
will either use a generic “guest” timed login system, or generate temporary Guest User ID’s to walk-in patrons upon presentation of a valid photo ID. (The latter system is becoming more common for security reasons, because each guest user then has a unique
traceable ID.)
Most academic contracts from the major STEM publishers specifically prohibit off-campus or any proxy-access use by patrons other than faculty,
staff, or currently-enrolled students. Academic contracts also usually prohibit schools from selling access to these resources, so if you charge for guest access to the Library itself, you have to be very careful that you are not presenting the transaction
as purchase of access to the online resources.
Essentially, it is all in the contract terms, and if you have a very large contract spend then you have more leverage to negotiate favorable
terms. Your best bet would be to get hold of copies of some of your focus Universities’ vendor contracts so that you can examine them, though I warn you that that might be hard to accomplish if you plan to quote them, as quite a few of them also have riders
that prohibit public release of contract terms.
Best,
Maureen Herraghty
Maureen E. Herraghty
Director of Library Services
Elizabeth Gray Danforth Library
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
975 North Warson Road
Saint Louis, MO 63132
t 314.587.1081
f 314.587.1181
From: Serials
in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of
Fastmail
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 9:58 AM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: [SERIALST] question about digital serials access
Hello everyone,
I am in my first term at the iSchool at Syracuse, so do forgive me if this question is naïve. I would like to know if it is possible to give unaffiliated
users access to electronic serials at a very large academic library?
I want to research the practicalities of implementing, for unaffiliated users such as visiting scholars, a system similar to the alumni library cards
universities like Columbia and Yale have in place. I am an alumna of Barnard College, so I have friends with Columbia library cards, and I live in New Haven with friends who work at Yale Libraries, so I am also aware of Yale’s policies. Would it be possible
to offer a paid library card system for unaffiliated users that would also offer access to electronic journals? Perhaps a limited number of these, to assure only a specific and measurable increase in users to subscription serials? I am thinking specifically
of a university like Yale, where these cards and their users would constitute a very small number, compared to the total number of users. My professor fears that vendors would not consider this idea to be at all appealing, and would reject it out of hand.
She suggested that I contact members of this list, as you are the experts!
Any ideas or suggestions would be incredibly helpful! I am at a stage in my research where I can be very flexible, so please send anything and everything
my way.
Thanks in advance,
Anne-Marie
Anne-Marie Lindsey
Library Science and Information Management
iSchool at Syracuse University
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